Travel photographer Bill Bachmann is an ardent advocate for basing stock image pricing on usage (the rights-managed model), not on file size (the royalty-free and microstock models). In 2009, Bachmann is on track to earn almost $1 million from licensing his travel and lifestyle images.
Current established
usage fees are so low that many photographers and small agencies that
have specialized in selling to textbooks have either gone out of
business, or are on the verge of doing so. Nevertheless, the
excessively low prices were still not enough for the publishers. To
press their advantage it now appears that many of the larger publishers
have systematically, not occasionally or accidentally, printed many
more copies of books than they licensed rights to print.
WoodWing Software of The Netherlands and London-based Imprezzeo have announced an agreement to incorporate Imprezzeo's visual search technology into WoodWing's Content Station, an online publishing tool for enterprise-level content producers.
The figures gathered by CEPIC last year suggest that the stock industry's gross revenue estimates could be inflated by as much as a third as a result of double counting sales.
ITN Source has announced an archive footage deal with Shanghai Media Group, China's largest commercial broadcaster. This follows an earlier agreement with China's largest foreign education publisher Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
Getty Images Photographer's Choice contributors have been asking if they can participate in the recent Flickr Collection Call for Artists. Getty is allowing this, as long as the contributor has a payee name that is different from his or her current account. This can be accomplished as simply as adding "Inc." or "LLC" to the contributor name name.
Non-French photographers, photo agencies and other creditors owed money by SA Eyedea Presse (more commonly known as Gamma or Gamma Presse) only have until November 30 to file a court claim for any monies owed.
Following the release of the court-mandated revision to the Google Books Settlement, CEPIC -- formerly known as the Coordination of European Picture Agencies and just rebranded as Centre of the Picture Industry, complete with a new logo -- has renewed its objections to the precedent-setting agreement.
More and more publishers seem to be discovering that they "accidentally" printed more copies of books than they licensed rights to print. The latest comes from Scholastic.