The Bodø, Norway-based microstock underdog Crestock has unveiled the third version of its Web site. Crestock sells individual-image licenses, bulk-credit packages and subscriptions. Its business model is similar to other microstock providers in all ways save one: competing on image quality.
Former Getty Images CFO Lawrence Gould wants to appeal to the Google generation of creatives with his new royalty-free stock library ImagePick. Co-founded by Gould and former Getty director of e-commerce Tom Donnelly, ImagePick promises search simplicity and image quality.
Gregg Stallings and Lynn Martin have joined Aurora Photos, Stallings as director of sales and Martin as director of royalty free.
The explosion of video has already affected the stock-licensing and photography industries. The largest stock-image companies have all diversified into video-related service lines. And the impact is felt by companies large and small.
The Corbis incentive program announced last week offers up to 90% discounts on RF images - with a few twists. The discounts are for low-volume customers, but if you qualify, it's a great deal.
Since 2004, Alamy has been providing detailed information relative to the company's operations, though as a private company, it's not required to do so. The following 2006-2007 financial breakdown can be useful to image suppliers.
Alamy had gross sales in Q3 2007 of $7,506,000 and is on track to exceed $28 million in all of 2007, up 15.5% from its 2006 revenue of $24,237,364.
Two British image companies, Rex Features and Loop Images, launched redesigned Web sites this week. London-based Rex Features made over its site completely, adding new features, while Surrey-based Loop Images streamlined its home page to make it more user-friendly.
For 25 years Ron Chapple has been one of the world's leading stock photographers, always on the cutting edge of the next trend. In the 1990s he was the top seller of RM imagery for FPG, a major stock photo agency of that period. After Getty Images purchased FPG, Ron established Thinkstock, an RF production company. In 2004 he sold Thinkstock to Jupitermedia for more than $4 million. While still producing RM and traditional RF, he recently became an aggressive producer of microstock.
The Barcelona-based age fotostock announced plans to launch a new brand, Web site and business model, easyFotostock. The 35-year-old agency is calling it a "low-budget, royalty-free" offering.
The proposed Federal Shield Law was designed to protect journalists from being forced to reveal their sources in federal court. Such laws are already in place in 32 states and Washington, D.C.; however, there is currently no federal version of the protection.
age footstock’s Technological Hosting Platform Photo Services has launched a new service targeting stock-image distributors.
The Sausalito, Calif.-based ImageSpan is a licensing and revenue-automation platform offering rights-management, licensing and billing services alongside delivering creative content. ImageSpan’s LicenseStream, a service that simplifies the manual rights-clearance and licensing processes for content owners, is now offered on a subscription basis to over 100 million designers and other content creators using Adobe Creative Suite 3.
The Industry Measure, formerly known as TrendWatch Graphic Arts, released the latest edition of its annual Internet design and development market-survey report. The results of the survey confirm that online media remains strong, with 33% of respondents reporting excellent, improved business conditions since the previous summer.
The regional, rights managed stock agency Folio, based in Washington, D.C., has closed its doors after 20 years, citing “significant competitive changes†resulting from the proliferation of RF and Microstock sources.
A little under eight years since its founding, the Oxfordshire, U.K.-based Alamy uploaded its 10-millionth image today. To celebrate, all of today's sales will pay an additional 10% photographer commission. The company also publicly disclosed its revenues and financial projections for the future.
The Hamburg, Germany-based plainpicture has announced a new French office and the addition of three new exclusive brands to its collection.
Each year, Getty Images awards five editorial-photography grants totaling $100,000. Three $20,000 winners were selected from 124 applicants in September, and the deadline to apply for the next two grants is Nov. 15. The grants are designed to finance and provide editorial support to new documentary photo projects.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the March appellate-court decision that photojournalist Peter Turnley had a constitutional right to take a photo of soldier Kyle Brinlee's open casket, and Harper's Magazine had the same First Amendment right to publish it.