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.
San Francisco-based Cutcaster has augmented its micro-payment pay-as-you-go system with credits and corporate accounts.
The Flickr Collection, which
was first announced by Getty Images and Flickr parent Yahoo! in early July 2009, is now available for commercial licensing exclusively through gettyimages.com.
Microstock subscription leader Shutterstock has extended footage subscriptions from 30 days to full year without raising prices. The company has also announced a new low-resolution video product, confirming recent reports of recessionary pressure on stock footage.
A survey conducted by The British Photographic Council revealed a rise in client requests for copyright or very broad rights-transfers when commissioning or buying images, without a corresponding increase in fees. The pressure on photographers to accept these conditions has also increased, with photographers reporting significant losses of income to this practice. Though this survey was limited to the U.K., the wealth of anecdotal evidence, online discussions and media coverage suggests that the situation is much the same in most markets—and is increasingly prevalent in light of current economic conditions.
"
Getty Sweeps POY" of March 9 misstated the number of awards Getty Images' photographers won at two recent competitions. Getty photographers won not 19 but 17 Pictures of the Year awards and not one but two World Press Photo awards. The original story was revised on March 10.
The Tasini case has not reached a final resolution in 16 years of litigation and negotiations. In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court had decided that a group of publishers infringed on the copyrights of freelance writers by digitizing and redistributing their contributions. However, not all plaintiffs in the Tasini v. New York Times had registered copyrights in their works. For this reason, a New York Court of Appeals declined to approve a negotiated settlement between writers and publishers, moving the case back to the Supreme Court level.