News Analysis
Renowned adventure photographer Galen Rowell and his wife Barbara were killed August 11th in a plane crash near their home in Bishop, CA. They were returning from a three week photo workshop in the Bering Sea.
Until recently Masterfile had been one of the last major agencies to insist that every photographer they represented be exclusive with them. Earlier this year they moved to an image-exclusive contract with all their artists, but they still insisted on the right-of-first-refusal. Now they have eliminated that as well. This provides great new opportunities for photographers.
In this issue are points for RF distributors to consider about Digital Vision's new alliance with Getty, Getty and Klein Sell Shares, Corbis Sales of Editorial Images For Advertising, PictureQuest to Set Up German Office, Imagefile in Ireland Splits and Pictor Folds.
One of the big problems in building a business by acquisition is that eventually integration of the smaller entities is necessary. Getty and Corbis are both facing integration problems now. Check out some of the hurdles that photographers should consider as they move ahead.
Getty Images posted a profit for the second consecutive quarter, but sales dipped 2.2% to $113.3 million when compared with sales a year ago. Jonathan Klein said, ''Not withstanding the turmoil in the financial markets and the very difficult environment in which many of our customers still find themselves, our business is in the best shape it has ever been.''
Thinking about developing your own website where customers can search for your images? This story gives information about four cost effective solutions to the problem that are working successfully for photographers. Many photographers are finding that having their own site is an important key to maximizing sales of their images.
One of E-bay's sellers is offering hard drives loaded with Royalty Free images in violation of the RF license. His most recent sale was an 80GB Maxtor firewire Mac/PC external drive in perfect condition with over 60 RF titles for $760.00. Creators get nothing for such sales. E-bay has been asked to cancel this seller's privileges, but so far has done nothing.
Natural Selection has launched a new web site with a Category Tree search feature. David Brown says it makes searching for images faster and far more accurate than keyword systems. The URL for the site is http://www.nssp.com.
Is the stock industry giving customers what they want? In the near future the only images available for licensing will be those that can be searched and delivered online. The online images will never be more than a minute fraction of the total images available in stock files today and many customers still want to use many of these other images.
This contains short items on: Advertising Recovery?, Getty Expectations, PACA International Conference Scheduled, What's In A Name: RP or RM, SuperStock Website Redesign and The StockRep Closes.
Is the stock industry giving customers what they want? In the near future the only images available for licensing will be those that can be searched and delivered online. The online images will never be more than a minute fraction of the total images available in stock files today and many customers still want to use many of these other images.
In this issue there are stories on: Customer Service, Veer Directory, PanStock To Represent Mon-Tresor, Burak Joins TimePix, CEPIC International Congress, PACA Reorganization, Workbookstock.com Print Catalog, Masterfile To Represent Zefa in U.S., Sheldon Marshall Resigns From ImageState, Pictor Bankruptcy, Corbis Reorganization and more.
The team behind EyeWire is pioneering a frequent, direct-mail directory that will help Rights-Managed image suppliers sell their images. The Veer Directory of Rights-Managed Stock Imagery is designed to assist buyers in their search for images and to drive traffic to seller's web sites. Only those with searchable web sites will be accepted as advertisers.
visual media international the parent company of ''zefa'' Dusseldorf, has entered into a strategic alliance with Masterfile Corporation in Toronto that has major implications for the industry.
PACA has been forced to reorganize and dramatically cut costs in the face of severe financial losses in 2001. The Seventh International Conference will be held in South Beach, Miami, Florida this year.
Sheldon Marshall has resigned from ImageState after the board decided to focus on organic growth rather than growth through acquisition. Chris Adamson is serving as acting Chief Executive Office until a new CEO can be hired.
Corbis has realigned its top leadership by dissolving the co-president structure and naming Steve Davis CEO and Tony Rojas Chief Operating Officer. Leslie Hughes will be leaving the company as of June 30th.
The CEPIC annual Congress has clearly become the premier place for stock agents from around the world to meet and do business. This year 446 delegates from 33 countries met in Budapest from May 24th through 26th. This report deals with some of the high points of the Congress.
Stock Connection and Pictor have agreed to terms that would transfer the image files currently under control of Pictor INC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Pictor Ltd., to Stock Connection for future management and marketing in North America. As Pictor is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. the deal must still be approved by the court.
Sheldon Marshall reports that his position at ImageState has changed to that of Deputy Chairman of ImageState Plc. He never had ''day-to-day operational responsibility'' as my report on May 4th indicated. (See Story 477.)
This issue has stories on Anton Dentler Assuming Representation of Mon-Tresor Catalogs, Corbis Iron Mountain Storage Facility Opens, Workbookstock.com Releases Print Catalog and Burak Joins TimePix.
Sources indicate that Sheldon Marshall has been removed from day-to-day operational responsibility at ImageState and has been given the title of Vice Chairman. For the immediate future Chris Adamson, ImageState's Chief Financial Officer, will take over responsibilities as President of the company while they search for a new Chief Executive.
This issue contains articles on Textbook Revenue, Royalty Payment Issues, ImageState Restructuring, Getty Sales Up, SuperStock Acquires Powerstock,The Exclusive Dilemma, E-Data Moves to acquire royalties from JPEG users, Zefa Belgium Bankruptcy, Ward vs National Geographic and more.
The saga of the National Geographic CD-ROM's continues. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Geographic made infringing use of images in 1997, but still no settlement for damages. Fred Ward had 850 images and texts for 12 articles used over three decades. Now he has filed a Request for Summary Judgement. His case, as outlined in court documents, reveals many interesting details about Geographic.
This article contains information on the Settlement of the Zefa Belgium Bankruptcy, BBC Natural History Library Name Change, Art Resources Representing Museum of Modern Art Images, Japan agency AFLO enters U.S. Market, and ImageState's New RF Collection.