At Visa pour l'Image in France earlier this month Olivier Laurent of the British Journal of Photography interviewed Jonathan Klein, CEO and co-founder of Getty Images. Among the issues discussed were falling prices, the future of the industry, the need for new economic models and the role of smartphones in a market in flux. The entire article can be found
here.
Major League Baseball Properties (MLBP) and global digital media company Getty Images today announced a long-term extension of their successful partnership. Getty Images will continue to serve as the exclusive commercial photography partner of Major League Baseball (MLB) and exclusive licensor of the entire MLB image archive.
Getty is telling debt investors (people who buy corporate bonds and corporate debt) that 70% of iStockphoto revenue is generated by exclusive images. They also say that total iStock revenue annually is around $300 million. iStock revenue declined 9% in Q2 2013 compared with Q2 2012. Thus, about $90 million of Getty’s revenue comes from non-exclusive images and $210 million from exclusive
After reading about the new
Facebook TOS I began to wonder if Facebook would be able to resell images their advertisers acquire from Shutterstock as part of the new
Facebook/Shutterstock deal.
Getty Images rising debt compared to earnings (EBITDA) is worrying debt investors. Moody’s is reviewing the company to determine if they need to lower their Rating of the company’s debt. Getty has $2.6 billion in outstanding debt including an approximate $1.9 billion term loan, $550 million of 7% notes due October 2020 and $150 million line of credit. Gross revenue for the year ending June 30, 2013 revenue was $897 million.
In June 2013
VisualSteam conducted a survey of over 1,000 art buyers, designers, creative directors, photo editors, service managers (and more), from agencies, design firms, publishers and corporations in the U.S. to determine “What Buyers Want.” They received a statistically valid response. For detailed results see the 5 page pdf or a longer video presentation
here.
Disability Images has created a body of work that focuses on empowerment and accessibility, and reflects the lives of people with disabilities who run companies, have families, participate in sports, study, learn and enjoy life.
As of September 5th Facebook has modified its Terms of Use to allow the company to sell virtually anything that is uploaded to the site, including all your photos, your identity and your data. Facebook has explicitly removed the privacy protection from the commercialization rights.
Clearly Shutterstock is on a growth curve in terms of number of images downloaded and revenue. According to debt investors (those who trade in corporate bonds and corporate debt) Getty’s revenue has been declining over the last three quarters and the company’s expenses have been increasing due to increased marketing costs. To get back in the game Getty has to try to take market share from Shutterstock.
Many Internet users seem to believe that it is OK to use any image they find online for wallpaper on their site. The next step is to grab a bunch of images they like and create a site that makes the images available to others for free wallpaper use. And, once they’ve gone to the trouble to create a site the site owners figure they might as well make a little money by selling a few ads.