Getty Dumps Artville Photographers

Posted on 11/1/2000 by Jim Pickerell | Printable Version | Comments (0)

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GETTY DUMPS ARTVILLE PHOTOGRAPHERS


November 1, 2000

Getty Images is moving to close down and consolidate brands. We reported in September

(Story 338) that

Planet Earth Pictures, a nature and wildlife agency in the UK was being

closed and all the images were being returned to the photographers.

In late September Getty began notifying photographers with images on the Artville royalty

free discs that as of January 1st Getty would no longer be marketing photographic work

through Artville. It is our understanding that they will continue to market illustration

work through that brand. Artville has about 250 titles and approximately half of them are

photography.

Photographers were told that "the majority of the images in the collection did not meet the

Getty Images' quality standards," and thus they found it necessary to stop selling this

material.

It is unclear how much revenue Getty might be giving up with this move, but it is believed

that gross sales for Artville products are several million dollars annually. Of course,

Getty's hope is that with Artville products no longer available their customers will be

happy to settle for the images that PhotoDisc or Eyewire offer. The strategy, of course,

is to sell a high volume of a limited offering, rather than giving the customers greater

variety and choice.

With Artville, scanning costs were not a consideration in continuing to sell the products

because every image was already scanned at high resolution. In addition Getty has decided

to destroy their inventory of photographic discs as of January 1st rather than continue to

sell the product.

New Option For Photographers

Fortunately for the photographers who supplied the content PictureArts Corporation has

moved to continue to make this material available to buyers. PictureArts will launch Brand

X Pictures early in 2001. This new Royalty Free service will have over 6,000 images on 60

to 80 titles at launch.

PictureArts is the parent company of FoodPix stock images and Burke/Triolo Productions.

Jeffrey Burke, president of PictureArts, said, "Our experience in the stock picture

industry, both with FoodPix and as a major contributor to the Artville brand, gives us a

good viewpoint from which to launch such a venture. We are confident that our unique mix

of traditional and cutting-edge imagery will appeal to graphic arts professionals

everywhere."

Brand X Pictures will be composed of two distinct collections; the 'X" collection, which

will offer a wide variety of useful, proven subject matter and the "Lit" collection, which

will feature highly stylized, unique images. Burke said, "We are very fortunate to have

acquired the future licensing and distribution rights to most of the Artville photography

collection. We feel there is some outstanding photography there which hasn't been in the

marketplace for very long, and therefore has great sales potential. The 'Lit" collection

has some incredible images that all the artists are proud to put their names on, which is a

very important point for us."

PictureArts will aggressively market and promote the Brand X Pictures product line

worldwide. In North America images will be available through on-line, telephone and other

direct sales channels. The products will also be available worldwide through selected

on-line and mail order resellers.


Copyright © 2000 Jim Pickerell. 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

Jim Pickerell is founder of www.selling-stock.com, an online newsletter that publishes daily. He is also available for personal telephone consultations on pricing and other matters related to stock photography. He occasionally acts as an expert witness on matters related to stock photography. For his current curriculum vitae go to: http://www.jimpickerell.com/Curriculum-Vitae.aspx.  

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