Publishers
In the case of Pacific Stock, Inc. vs. Pearson Education United States District Judge Susan Oki Mollay in Hawaii has denied Pearson’s request for summary judgment with regard to Pacific Stock’s claim that Pearson had engaged in fraud and fraudulent inducement in its use of 59 images. Pacific Stock has also alleged that with regard to 151 images from 70 of its photographers Pearson exceeded the print run rights granted for the use of its images in Pearson textbooks.
United Kingdom photographers are up in arms over the latest action by their government to make it legal for consumers to use their images without their permission. The
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act recently passed in the U.K. provides a way to legally use images found on the Internet when the copyright owner cannot be identified or contacted. Such images are known as “orphaned works.”
In recent discussions with agents operating in Europe it seems that it has become impossible to hold the line on pricing. They say there is always a competitor willing to undercut any rate.
Last month the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-to-3 decision in the case of
Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons found that Supap Kirtsaeng had the right to resell, in the United States, textbooks that his friends and relatives purchased in Thailand. The Thai math student at Cornell University generated roughly $900,000 in revenue by reselling books that can be purchased at a much lower price in Thailand than in the U.S.
If you are a young person who wants a career in visual communications where are the opportunities likely to be? They are least likely to be in print publishing. This article presents statistics that explain why and gives some insights into the potential for video.
In the digital age there is declining interest among consumers and advertisers in print publications. Investors have little confidence that there will ever be a recovery or revival of print. They want the companies they invest in to shed marginally profitable assets and focus on the much more profitable businesses of film and television. Publishers like Time Warner are looking for ways to reduce their print publication exposure and concentrate their investments on assets that offer better growth potential.
A major shift is coming in the education market, and more rapidly than many expect. In Pearson’s recent
Q4 2012 earnings call John Fallon, CEO and Chief Executive of International Education business discussed many of the “fundamental structural change” that are taking place in Pearson’s education business.
In January the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a report on Media and Information that provides some interesting insights into the photography business. Median still photographer income in U.S. is $28,860. The median for TV and video camera operators is over $40,000 and almost $53,000 for Film and Video editors.
At the PACA International Conference in October, Christie Silver of McGraw Hill School Education Group provided details on where her team found images for a major reading program they have been working on this year. She also provided insights as to how educational publishers will be sourcing images in the future and pointed out that the main focus of all educational efforts these days is digital.
At the PACA International Conference in Chicago in October the keynote
speakers was Ken Carson, EVP and General Counsel of Cengage Learning. He
outlined many of the challenges educational publishers face today and
provided insights as to where content licensing for educational use is
headed.
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) and Google have announced a settlement agreement that will provide the Google Library Project with access to books and journals that are still protected by copyright. Now, Google may digitize new books as well as make the contents of books already scanned available online.
For more than 30 years “Collecting Societies” in many countries have had systems to compensate photographers when their images in books and periodicals are photocopied. U.S. photographers are not so fortunate.
Last weeks
announcement that PACA, ASMP and CCC are considering some type of arrangement that would compensate image creators for the unauthorized web usage of their images on sites like Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, etc. needs careful examination by all photographers and distributors before anything is formalized.
Photographer Jacques Jangoux reports that Alamy has licensed two of his images - A3N0PR (2 boys in a canoe in the Amazon region) and A3AB62 (waterfall of Jari River, tributary of the Amazon) – for just
$25.00 each for textbook use. Of course the photographer will only receive 60% of these figures.
For some time professional image suppliers and many educational publishers have been at odds over unlicensed use of images. Image creators and suppliers claim they have not been properly compensated for the use of some images while publishers either try to hide the unauthorized uses or argue that what they have done is not copyright infringement. Now publishers and image creators are on the same side against alleged infringer
Boundless Learning.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) filed a voluntary petition for
reorganization under Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the
Southern District of New York. The “pre-packaged” comprehensive
financial restructuring plan will eliminate $3.1 billion of the
company’s debt through a debt to equity transaction with its bank and
bond holders.
Universal Images Group Limited has built a database of more than 2.5 million education images for use by Encyclopaedia Britannica, in its
Image Quest online subscription service for schools, colleges and universities.
In the case of Jon Feingersh Photography, Inc. vs. Pearson Education, Inc. Judge Anita B. Brody in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has denied a request from Pearson that it not be required to release the print quantities and publication dates of the various textbooks in which 50 of Feingersh’s images were used.
Recently, the results of a year long study of Algebra 1 students at the Amelia Earhart Middle School in Riverside, California were announced. The math scores of the students who were taught using Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s
HMH Fuse: Algebra 1 curriculum on the iPad were
20% higher in the Spring 2011 California Standards Test than other students who were taught using traditional paper textbooks.
An international alliance of publishers including seven member companies
of the Association of American Publishers, with support from AAP and
other international trade associations, has identified and taken legal
action against operators of one of the largest pirate web-based
businesses in the world.