According to Jupitermedia CEO Alan Meckler, there is a strong possibility that Jupiterimages will enter the celebrity imagery space. Though Meckler is still unsure of any specifics, he promises the new offering will be original if it launches. In addition, there has been speculation about the possibility of a similar move by the Associated Press.
At yesterday's Goldman Sachs 2007 Communacopia Conference, Jonathan Klein told investment analysts that about 75% of Getty Images' business is down. "Our core stock-photography business has stopped growing. In fact, it is declining," he said. Analysts were not surprised, noting that Getty stock hit a 52-week low last Tuesday.
Masterfile Corp.'s lawsuit against J.V. Trading concluded with the District Court of New York awarding the stock agency five times its usual licensing fee for online use of rights-managed imagery. The court granted the full extent of damages requested, including statutory damages and attorney's fees, for a total of $46,816.91.
Alamy CEO James West has announced the agency's plans to launch a number of new products designed to broaden the agency's customer base and expand its pricing strategy. In a more surprising move, the privately held Alamy will also make its financial information public.
Corbis has launched a microsite to provide images and footage to ad agencies, campaigns and news outlets during the 2008 U.S. elections. The company pegs related ad spending as exceeding $3 billion, or nearly double that of the last presidential race. The two areas of significant spending increases are anticipated on the Web and in newspapers.
With the launch of the PhotoShelter Collection, the company that previously specialized in providing online archiving and e-commerce solutions has gone into the business of stock licensing.
The soon-to-launch royalty-free portal BrightQube.com is starting to make viral circles around the blogosphere. Though promises of revolutionizing image search no longer impress industry insiders, BrightQube's search interface is a new, techno-savvy and time-efficient twist on the industry-standard engine.
Getty Images has decided to reduce the duration of rights-ready and rights-managed images available under its new Web-use license to three months from the previously announced one year.
Attributor Corp., a California-based company that bills itself as the world's first Web-wide content monitoring and analysis platform, has signed Reuters as a client.