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PRESS RELEASES 23
August 2, 2006
Getty Images Announces New 'Rights-Ready' Licensing Model
Getty Images, Inc. has announced the upcoming launch of rights-ready licensing, which enables customers in the creative, corporate and publishing arenas to obtain high
quality still imagery through a simplified pricing and usage structure.
Developed with insight drawn from extensive global customer research,
rights-ready licensing combines Getty Images content and functionality, entering the market as the only model of its kind. It will be available in late August at
(www.gettyimages.com).
"In a world of ubiquitous, rapid-fire communication, our customers have to be
more nimble than ever, and licensing must adapt accordingly. The rights-ready
solution makes licensing fast, flexible and predictable while delivering a
level of rights control that limits the possibility of over-exposure in the
marketplace," said Robert Gubas, vice president of product marketing at Getty
Images. "We're excited to be the first imagery provider to offer this synergy
of efficiency and effectiveness."
Under the rights-ready model, duration and territory rights are unlimited and
use parameters are broadly defined, so customers can avoid re-licensing for
creative campaigns that have the potential to evolve over time. Further
streamlining the process, eight fixed price points are designated according
to basic commercial, internal company and editorial use categories, at levels
comparable to corresponding rights-managed single use categories. While the
model does not grant image exclusivity, a total image buyout can be
negotiated.
The rights-ready image collection, Riser, combines a breadth of subject
matter with creativity. Riser will feature approximately 80,000 high quality
images at launch, with concepts spanning lifestyle, business, travel, sport
and wildlife content categories. To ensure the collection stays relevant to
customer needs, Getty Images will continue to expand the Riser collection,
adding hundreds of new images each month.
"The scope of a campaign isn't always easy to define at conception as
powerful ideas are often transformed during the creative process," said
Andrew Saunders, vice president of imagery at Getty Images. "Rights-ready
licensing allows customers to easily extend their campaigns and to employ
innovative thinking, making it an especially useful resource for new media
applications."
The new model complements the company's existing rights-managed, royalty-free
and subscription models, and the micro-payment model of its subsidiary,
iStockphoto. Its introduction aligns with Getty Images' continual effort to
offer customers the most innovative tools in the imagery industry.
Index Provides Images For Cell Phone Wallpaper
Index Stock Imagery has allied with Cellfish Media LLC, a division of Lagardere Active. Working with its "small office/home office" division, Photos To Go, (www.photostogo.com), Index will provide imagery for use as cell phone wallpaper for Cellfish worldwide wireless clientele. Today millions of users are enjoying access to "infotainment" in the form of images, music, videos and ringtones focused on the tech savvy media generation. Photos To Go will supply up to one hundred new images per month that cell users will be able to download. Millions of images are downloaded per month worldwide in this industry.
Cellfish Media LLC creates and distributes original branded content including ringtones, wallpapers, animations, games and applications. Its divisions feature some of today's biggest music artists (Lil Jon, Tego Calderon, Q-tip, Pitbull and Emilio Estefan) and includes Barrio Mobile, BlingGames and the widely acclaimed BlingTones, the world's first wireless record label. Headquartered in New York City, Cellfish Media LLC brings together a team of 250 skilled professionals and generated 2005 revenues of $116 million.
Mike Kaltschnee, VP of Business Development at Index said, "We're excited that Cellfish Media has licensed Index images to use as cell phone wallpaper, and we'll be providing a wide variety of photos from our 1,700 professional photographers to help keep the Cellfish Media products interesting and up-to-date."
"We're constantly looking to bring our customers the most compelling content available. Simply, Index Stock brings us an exhaustive catalog of the highest quality," says Jonathan Dworkin, VP of A&R for Cellfish Media.
CEPIC and BVPA collaborate On IPTC Metadata Standards
A working Group was established within IPTC, the International Press and Telecommunication Council, in order to study possible expansion of the IPTC photo header, used by virtually every photographer world-wide. Head of the group is Harald Loeffler from IFRA (www.ifra.de), the world leading association for newspaper and media publishing.
The IPTC (www.iptc.org) was established in 1965 by group of news organizations with the purpose of establishing common standards for the transfer of high-speed news information, including text but also photographs. Since December 2005 CEPIC is an Associate Member at IPTC together with German Member BVPA (www.bvpa.org). As such these two organizations may participate as observers in General Meetings and Committees and may vote in Working Groups.
At the CEPIC annual Congress BIARRITZ in France in June 2006, Michael Steidel, Managing Director of IPTC, made a presentation on the photo metadata standards maintained by the IPTC, the IIM based "IPTC photo header" and the XLM based "IPTC-Core". More than 80 of the (around 700) congress attendees heard the presentation "and the following discussion showed a strong interest in the IPTC standards, along with but also strong request for metadata beyond the current set" reports IPTC. At CEPIC it was agreed to collaborate on metadata issues and finally a Working Group was set up at the AGM in July.
"I am really glad that the picture business gets a chance to co-operate with IPTC" comments Staffan Teste, representative of CEPIC at IPTC. "It is important that the picture industry has a chance to influence the way metadata in the future will look like. It is important that the special problems of stock & heritage may be taken care of. The photo metadata comes into a new era in which more and more information is taken from the camera. A working flow must be built up not only for news and print but also for web, mobile telephone and all media using pictures. If the information is provided as early as possible in the working flow, it will become much easier to search for the copyright owner and the information about the picture will never get lost, regardless how the picture is being used."
Besides this internal photo metadata group, IPTC has also set up a public group for discussion available at the following link:
(groups.yahoo.com/group/iptc-photometadata)
Science Faction.net Completes Web Site
The Science Faction stock photography website has been launched and is ready for use.
Under construction for the past 12 months, the new (www.sciencefaction.net) is built upon new software developed by CiT Digital of Sheffield, England. The site's acclaimed design and functionality results from a collaboration between Science Faction and CiT. Said Science Faction's CEO, Roger Ressmeyer, "Over the past two weeks, CiT completed the site's final integration and delivered 100% of our version 1.0 specifications. It's been amazing to watch the final pieces fall perfectly into place, enabling instantaneous pricing, invoicing, confirmation of rights availability and download of 55 MB rights-managed images. We couldn't be happier with the end results of this first phase of our collaboration with CiT."
The website offers a number of enhancements over existing stock image websites. Exceptionally large yet quickly viewable thumbnails attract customers to complex images that have lost popularity since the advent of online stock. "Until now, stock websites have favored bold images with bright colors and very simple compositions - that's all the smaller thumbnails could successfully get across to buyers," said Ressmeyer. "Science Faction's website features 230-pixel thumbnails, giving the edge back to detailed, complex images in the tradition of Ansel Adams. Intricate images taken by Science Faction's world-class photographers Peter Ginter and Louie Psihoyos are selling exceptionally well off the new website," Ressmeyer added. "Our website provides a lot of real estate to each of our fabulous photographers, including their biographies and portfolios featuring some of their best work."
Lisa Roper, Science Faction's VP of Sales, praised the website's ease of use and functionality. "science faction.net supports image sales and marketing better than any other website I've ever worked with. From efficient editing of images embedded with metadata to slick light box functions and automated preferred pricing for steady clients, the website puts us on par with the biggest and best in the industry," she said.
CiT brought their design and programming expertise, which they have developed in over 20 years of IT work within the photo industry. Together, Science Faction and CiT pushed the results of their collaboration to new heights.
Said Richard Cruz, CiT's founder and CEO, "While working with Roger and Science Faction, we have further enhanced our existing solutions, pushing the boundaries of customer user experience to new levels. All the features we developed together are now available in our new product lineup for stock archives and libraries." CiT provides end-to-end stock business service software. The new products include a totally-secure back end software system for business and image management, as well as the separate website module which automatically synchronizes its data with a Windows server located behind a firewall.
"We selected CiT for many important reasons," said Ressmeyer. "First, we don't have to share our sensitive sales and customer data with a portal owned and controlled by another business. Second, the system is incredibly fast, reliable and secure. Third, we had an opportunity to work from the ground floor and to shape a great new product. And finally, CiT's pricing, hosting and service is exceptional."
Science Faction images are available at (www.sciencefaction.net) as well as through Getty Images at (sciencefaction.net/gettyimages) CiT's products can be found at http://www.citdigital.com. (www.citdigital.com)