Getty Images' Orchard Represents and Annie Leibovitz have entered into a multi-assignment collaboration.
Canada's Torstar Syndication Services has launched GetStock.com, claiming that its 10-million-image inventory makes it the largest stock agency in Canada. The imagery comes from Alamy Images, Aurora Photos, TopFoto, IPNstock and Toronto Star Photos, among 21 agency-suppliers and an additional 40 individual photographers.
"I am writing to you today with some unpleasant news," begins an internal email from Getty Images chief executive officer Jonathan Klein. "We have tried very hard to avoid lay offs during the continued turmoil in the world's economy. However, it is now clear that we have no alternative."
The European Council-funded Metadata Image Library Exploitation Project will hold its final international conference on June 3, during the Dresden-based annual congress of the Coordination of European Picture Agencies. The MILE Project event, "Know Your Rights: How to Cope with Image Rights," will be free to CEPIC attendees and carry a 15 Euro cover charge for others.
The Copyright Registry has announced that members in good standing of the American Society of Media Photographers are now eligible for free services. The Registry, which beta-launched in 2008 in anticipation of the passage of an orphan-works legislation in the U.S., offers a set of free services; however, registering as a creator carries annual fees, as do several other services.
Founded in 2006, Quantcast bills itself as "a new breed of audience [measurement] service, focused on helping buyers and sellers quantify the real-time characteristics of digital media consumers." The company's statistics on several leading stock-licensing companies provide a new dimension of information on image buyers.
A survey on current and future media, conducted by The Rosen Group, has revealed that the majority of American readers still read print publications and pay for subscriptions. Nearly half of the survey respondents think this will still be the case in 10 years.
Los Angeles-based Footagehead, a royalty-free division of FootageBank HD that recently launched to focus on the online and mobile markets, has made a commitment to donate a portion of its revenues to hunger relief.