Dirty laundry

October 31, 2008 by pmelcher.

It’s been a long week, or rather couple of weeks, for the photo industry. Between the various shows in New York city, Paca, picturehouse, Photoplus, panels and parties, anyone that has remotely anything to do with photography was in New York for one or all of these.

But its been an even longer week with was has been happening in the photo world. First, the official announce of the Meckler/Jupiter debacle and fire sale confirming that it just doesn’t take a lot of cash to be succesful in this industry. Getty will absorb the collections and agreements in place, get rid of most of the staff , clean up the finance and move on. It was an easy and fruitful catch for them. Someone can inform Corbis of the deal, in two weeks, when they wake up.

Talking about Corbis, well, they couldn’t find any better deal then take money from their photographers. After having failed to generate a profit for so long and a stage that even if they remotely became cash flow positive, it would take another 20 years to catch up on all the money they have already spend, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if Bill Gates would finally pull the plug.

But all that is nothing compared to Getty getting slap with a 100 million dollar lawsuit by part of its photographers and contributors according to Selling Stock. Surprisingly, no one picked up that story. Pdnpulse has been too busy reporting on all the layoffs in publishing world, while others where commenting on the Photoplus panels and other useless events.

It been a while that Getty has been supplying staff and non staff images to a mysterious group of “premium subscribers”. These highly guarded few have “all you can eat” subscription deals with the Whale including access to photographers who only get a commission. And these guys have seen on their sales reports sales at $2 dollars. Even lower than Istock. But unlike Istock, these photographers are top notch pros that create image that command mucho dollars. Getty doesn’t care or cannot make the distinction. At the repeat demand of these photographers to be explained a bit more abut these deals that do not benefit them, Getty has remained silent. Contributors, like the science faction library, owned by ex getty VP Roger Ressmeyer, have even ask nicely to know more about the license granted and what industry these clients where in. More silence from the Whale. Same for the Minden collection, the famous and fabulous wildlife collection.

The reason for their demand for more information was not to  exercise control over Getty but rather to be able to inform their direct client if a particular image was available as an exclusive for a particular industry. Not only these images are sold by Getty for two bucks, but they become almost RF as the owners cannot guarantee any clients where these image are or have been.

Armed with they contract in hand, these guys have deposited a class action lawsuit, asking for reparation. We will see where this goes. Getty has a battery of strong lawyers and they will not go down without a long fight.

{An entry on Drr has been deleted}
A quick though on Picturehouse, and then I let you go. It always amazes me how much dollars is being poured in marketing  blunders. One company had the genius idea to stick into an already expensive bag, two oversized brochures. One was printed on glossy, very expensive paper. Big images, fancy layout, drooling fonts but absolutly no call for action. Basically you look at it once and you have only one thing left to do, throw it out.

The other brochure was printed on recycled paper. Same dimension, but all about how”green” and non polluting that agency is, and how “green” are they images. These two brochure side by side, in the same bag, just canceled each other.Lots of money than the drain. And no, it was not Corbis, for once.

There  were many other examples of “what were they thinking” and that show must become a destination for anyone looking for cheap pens or other useless ding dongs. If you took one of each item given for free and all claiming a space on your physical desktop, you could no longer fit your computer, let along get in your office.

Next year, I will beat everyone by getting giant real size stuffed elephants branded with my company name and give those away.

There is much more to write about these days but I see you are getting tired so we will do that another day.

Posted in magazine, Canada, technology, commercial stock, Jupiter, PACA, Royalty free, getty, corbis, Microstock | Print | No Comments »