The Stock Asylum, an online site that has provided news and analysis of the stock photo industry for the past five years, has announced that it will discontinue operations on April 6.
According to the transaction statement filed by Getty Images with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last Thursday, negotiations are still ongoing with a potential buyer other than Hellman & Friedman. The document also discloses, for the first time, the revenues of Getty-owned microstock business iStockphoto and other business segments.
Montreal-based photostockplus.com offers photographers a turn-key online platform with two products: a stock-licensing operation, and a package geared toward events such as weddings.
Panasonic, the flagship brand of Matsushita Electric Industrial, has renewed a three-year sponsorship contract of Our Place-World Heritage, a photo project that aims to build a photo library of the world’s historic sites. The
Osaka-based company, which recorded revenues of over $77 billion last year, is the project's principal financial sponsor.
California stock agency LOOK Photography now distributes select rights-managed and royalty-free images by Narratives, Red Cover and Quick Image.
BrightQube, a stock-image distributor and search engine founded in 2007, has launched a carbon-reduction program. The company will purchase TerraPass carbon offset credits that correspond to the amount of time buyers spend on its Web site for the duration of the program. All buyer activities will be taken into account, from setting up free accounts to building lightboxes and purchasing images.
Last week, Digital Railroad and the Midwest chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers organized a Chicago image-buyer roundtable. The panel included local advertising, corporate and publishing executives, who offered a rosy perspective on the state of the stock-licensing industry.
James Alexander, the former head of Adobe’s failed stock-image operation, has joined Jupitermedia as senior vice president and general manager of Jupterimages.
The Associated Press continues on the quest for domination of the sports and entertainment image segments. After moving longtime executive Daniel Becker to a newly created director post for entertainment content, AP replaced him with Getty Images’ veteran Guinevere Smith.
The PicApp licensing model has caused great concern among photographers in recent days, but it could well be the forerunner of the best way for photographers to earn money in the future.
Many image producers and distributors like to show slight variations of a situation on the theory that some customers may want a horizontal rather than a vertical, or a different expression, or a medium shot vs. a close-up. But to maximize sales of all subjects it is extremely important to be cognizant of the search engine's strategy for delivering search returns.
Editorial Photographers of U.K. and Ireland, an independent membership-based group and email list, is spearheading a grassroots copyright campaign. The first step is a new Web site, Copyright Action, a "community and educational resource that aims to become the intellectual property equivalent of Crimestoppers," according to EPUK.
The latest report from TNS Media Intelligence, a research firm specializing in advertising and marketing information, says the ad market continued to sputter at the end of 2007. The year ended with $148.99 billion in ad revenue, a 0.2% increase of ad spending since 2006. TNS senior vice president of research Jon Swallen describes the market as stalled and "engulfed by the spreading pessimism about general economic conditions."
News agency AP is shifting focus, taking a primary role in covering sports and entertainment news worldwide and across all platforms.
After several months of private beta-testing, PicScout's ad-supported image application is open to the public. While still officially in beta, PicApp now offers bloggers and publishers access to free editorial and creative imagery.
Since the launch of Getty's new search engine last August, several image partners have become increasingly unhappy with the falloff in revenue their images generate and how low their images appear in the search return order.
Pro-Imaging, a Abergavenny-based professional photographer organization with a global membership base, has issued a protest against One NorthEast, the U.K. Regional Development Agency for the Northeast of England and part of the U.K. Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. Pro-Imaging is challenging the terms of entry to One NorthEast's Student Challenge 2008, which invites submissions of creative ideas with a regional theme.
Within days of each other, two U.S. government agencies issued decisions in ongoing proceedings concerning Getty Images. On March 13, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission closed its 16-month inquiry into Getty Images' equity compensation grant practices. On March 18, the Federal Trade Commission cleared the way for the company to go private. Despite the good news, Getty still has to contend with several lawsuits.
The World Intellectual Property Organization continues to labor over the updates needed to international laws, which have been greatly affected by technological developments. Though the March session of WIPO's copyright committee reported little progress, issues like orphan works are beginning to make it onto the global IP agenda.
The Division of Enforcement of the Securities and Exchange Commission has notified Getty Images that it has closed its informal inquiry into the company's stockoption grant practices without recommending any enforcement action against the company, or any individuals associated with the company.