This story included short items on Randomeye, Allsport Copying Empics Web Site, new pricing for web & power point user at Getty & Corbis, Sygma images going into database, Promotions and Resignations at Corbis and Elsner back to consulting.
Commentary by Allen Russell, Dir. of Photography at Index Stock and past president of PACA on the state of the stock industry from the photographer's perspective.
Is there a logical reason for dividing revenues 50/50 in 2001, given the changes in the industry? Is this percentage fair?'' This story looks at the history and draws some conclusions.
Convergence has acquired Images Colour Library Ltd., (ICL) a UK based image library for $5.2 million and Zephyr Images for $2.15 million. Sheldon Marshall, former CEO of VCG, is COO of Convergence.
Getty reported 4th Quarter 2000 revenue of $129.4 million, up less than 2% from $127 million in the 3rd Quarter and below analysts's estimates. E-commerce sales represented almost $49.3 million of 4th Quarter revenue and $165 million for the year. Under 25% of gross revenue was paid to image creators in 2000.
The Photographer Income and Expense Survey for 2000 is available online for photographers to fill out. Any stock photographer, subscriber or not, may reply to this survey by going to http://www.pickphoto.com/sso/survey2001.htm Results will be published at the end of April.
Photographers contracted to Stone, The Image Bank, FPG and other VCG brands have formed a new group called StockArtistsAlliance (SAA) to jointly retain counsel to negotiate the new Getty contnract. This story included a letter outlining issues not dealt with in the contract outline supplied by Getty (Story 373).
ASMP has filed a complaint with the SEC against Getty Images for failure to report to the SEC Penny Gentieu's suit involving copyright infringement, false designation of origin, breach of fiduciary duties and breach of contract. ASMP alleges this could result in an award in excess of $2 million plus attorney fees and costs, and thus is significant information for Getty investors.
Getty has provided their photographers with an outline of features for a new streamlined cross brand contract. Details of the features are listed in this story. Getty expects to release the entire contract sometime in the next two months.
On the surface Getty's new contract outline is an improvement over existing contracts, but there are still a number of issues that should be examined closely when the contract is finally released. This story outlines some of those issues.
Several companies offer software that will simultaneously search many agency web sites. In this story we focus primarily on Random Eye's Image Grabber and compare it with 1StopStock. Such systems will aid in increasing traffic.
Corbis has layed off approximately 80 of its 1,300 employees in the marketing, technology, and analog operations in New York, Bellevue, Los Angeles and London. They have restructured their business in three separate market groups -- Creative Professionals, Business Communicators and Consumers -- in an effort to improve productivity.
There are widespread expectations that Getty will offer a new contract to TIB photographers early in 2001. This story looks at the some of the difficulties Getty will have in producing a contract that would work across all brands.
Getty Images has announced that they will begin returning to TIB, FPG and Stone photographers. Approximately 5.5 million originals inventoried in Dallas will be returned to TIB photogs soon. FPG images should be returned in the 2nd quarter. Plans for Stone will be announced in a week.
Mark Getty Snaps at Analysts, Invoicing Problems at FPG, Sales Reps Needed, Getty Struggles With Branding, David Moffly of FPG Is Back, Graphic Design Trends, Writers Start Agency, Steedman and Lloyd Take A Long Cruise, and more.
Mark Getty should be pleased with the international capital markets, but he is angry with the investment banks that he feels fuelled the technology boom to unsustainable levels and precipitated its collapse. See his comments to the London Sunday Telegraph.
This issue has stories on Protecting Model's Rights, New Contract Challenges for Getty, Alaska Stock Considers Lowering Royalty, E-Commerce Pricing Structure, Starting Your Own Agency, Stock Industry in Europe and more.
Alaska Stock has asked their photographers to consider a change in the royalty percentage from 50% to 40%. In exchange the photographers would not be charged catalog and dupe fees in the future. Jeff Schultz, owner of Alaska Stock, explains why this is necessary.
Stock photographers disheartened by recent changes in their relationships with their agency may find that now is an excellent time to join with a few other like minded photographers and start their own agency.
Several short items at the end of 2000: Random House ups writers royalties from 15% to 50% for books published on-line. Getty and Corbis are still trying to get things right with their photographers, Time Magazine still can't afford to pay much to photographers even though investors have done extremely well, and more.
This story provides a suggested strategy for pricing e-commmerce uses in the U.S. The same strategy with different numbers can be used in other parts of the world.
News items include Sarah Stone hired by Workbook, Getty Promotes Corbis, Stone catalog prices comparisons, PhotoDisc Price Increases, CEPIC 2001 Conference, Pricing Uses for House Organs and PPA Settles Copyright Suit with KMart.
Michael Trumbull found 26 images on the Net to illustrate his book ''The Best of Dot Com Humor.'' He is having trouble locating the copyright holders. Can you help? This story also points out some weaknesses in our current system of licensing rights to photographs found as a result of previous publication.
Klaus Plaumann of Picture Press in Germany provides an updated analysis of the stock photo business in Europe. This presentation was given at the International Conference of stock agencies in New York in November.
In Europe publications refer to paper sizes as A1, A2, A3, etc. These refer to standard dimension in milimeters or centimeters. A chart coverts these paper sizes to inches.