LIFE Archive Available on Google

Posted on 11/19/2008 by Julia Dudnik Stern | Printable Version | Comments (0)

In an announcement that surprised those who remember LIFE magazine’s recently publicized plan to relaunch Life.com in partnership with Getty Images, Time Inc. said it is putting over 10 million images online using Google. Millions of images, 97% of which have never been seen by the public, have already been digitized and made available on Google’s new image-hosting service.

Users can search the LIFE collection by either visiting its Google landing page or typing source:life after keywords entered into Google’s main and image search engines. The LIFE archive featured on Google will include all 10 million images in the collection within months. It will be among the largest digitized-photography collections on the Web.

LIFE executive vice president John Squires said: “This initiative continues our efforts to build valuable new revenue opportunities from our rich heritage.” However, the method of generating revenue is not immediately apparent. According to the announcement, the images hosted by Google are only available for personal and research purposes.

Search-result pages containing medium-size, unwatermarked images—comparable to stock-image comping sizes—identify the image as belonging to the LIFE collection and provide photographer and subject-matter information but do not contain either copyright information or usage guidelines.

In addition, the images are of relatively high quality. The mid-size images are suitable for online publishing, and the larger-size watermarked version offered through a separate link will produce an image of 3.4 inches by 4.3 inches at print resolution.



The collection contains much iconic imagery by great photojournalists. Though it also includes red-carpet and news coverage through the early 2000s, LIFE is primarily thought of as a collection of images such as the featured 1944 World War II image of an American soldier holding a dying infant, taken by W. Eugene Smith.

LIFE is also making fine art photographic prints available to consumers through QOOP.com. How these developments affect previous Life.com plans is not yet known.


Copyright © 2008 Julia Dudnik Stern. The above article may not be copied, reproduced, excerpted or distributed in any manner without written permission from the author. All requests should be submitted to Selling Stock at 10319 Westlake Drive, Suite 162, Bethesda, MD 20817, phone 301-461-7627, e-mail: wvz@fpcubgbf.pbz

Comments

Be the first to comment below.

Post Comment

Please log in or create an account to post comments.

Stay Connected

Sign up to receive email notification when new stories are posted.

Follow Us

Free Stuff

Stock Photo Pricing: The Future
In the last two years I have written a lot about stock photo pricing and its downward slide. If you have time over the holidays you may want to review some of these stories as you plan your strategy ...
Read More
Future Of Stock Photography
If you’re a photographer that counts on the licensing of stock images to provide a portion of your annual income the following are a few stories you should read. In the past decade stock photography ...
Read More
Blockchain Stories
The opening session at this year’s CEPIC Congress in Berlin on May 30, 2018 is entitled “Can Blockchain be applied to the Photo Industry?” For those who would like to know more about the existing blo...
Read More
2017 Stories Worth Reviewing
The following are links to some 2017 and early 2018 stories that might be worth reviewing as we move into the new year.
Read More
Stories Related To Stock Photo Pricing
The following are links to stories that deal with stock photo pricing trends. Probably the biggest problem the industry has faced in recent years has been the steady decline in prices for the use of ...
Read More
Stock Photo Prices: The Future
This story is FREE. Feel free to pass it along to anyone interested in licensing their work as stock photography. On October 23rd at the DMLA 2017 Conference in New York there will be a panel discuss...
Read More
Important Stock Photo Industry Issues
Here are links to recent stories that deal with three major issues for the stock photo industry – Revenue Growth Potential, Setting Bottom Line On Pricing and Future Production Sources.
Read More
Recent Stories – Summer 2016
If you’ve been shooting all summer and haven’t had time to keep up with your reading here are links to a few stories you might want to check out as we move into the fall. To begin, be sure to complet...
Read More
Corbis Acquisition by VCG/Getty Images
This story provides links to several stories that relate to the Visual China Group (VCG) acquisition of Corbis and the role Getty Images has been assigned in the transfer of Corbis assets to the Gett...
Read More
Finding The Right Image
Many think search will be solved with better Metadata. While metadata is important, there are limits to how far it can take the customer toward finding the right piece of content. This story provides...
Read More

More from Free Stuff