French salsa

October 28, 2010 by pmelcher.

Seems like all the news is coming from France these days. You would think they were all out in the streets protesting against having to work two more years, O but no, they are actually busy. Well Getty Images is busy.

Via a grandiloquent press release, they have just announced the distribution of the Gamma - Keystone collection for the whole world, besides France. For those of you who were not paying attention, Gamma Rapho Keystone used to be called Eyedea no longer than a year ago before sinking into bankruptcy. After weeks, months of negotiation, the discovery of a trust fund, alliance and dis-alliances, the liquidators managed to find a buyer in the  person of  Mr Lochon. Ex-photographer from Gamma in the 80’s, Lochon used his personal money to buy the company with the promise he would resuscitate it from the dead.  His plan ? Well, give it to Getty Image. As if Getty needed more content to distribute.

It’s a great deal for Getty. They didn’t have to buy anything thus no risks of being investigated for monopoly . They don’t have to scan, edit, or deal whatsoever with cranky mostly french photographers. Just sell the images and keep a cut . If they don’t sell anything, well, they don’t care, they haven’t spend a dime. For Lochon and Gamma - Keystone ? Well, not so good. Getty already has the Hutlon-Deutch archives ( some 80 million  images) as well as  what is left of Archive Images; Both trump Keystone historical content in size and content. Gamma’s content ? Well, it all depends on what gets scanned and how well.

The reason this deal went through ? Probably because Getty was to only one to ask. It is doubtful that AP or Reuters even approached Gamma Rapho . Corbis, freshly out the of dubious bankruptcy of Sygma, will probably never deal with anything French for centuries to come. What happens next? Little to nothing. Getty is now apparently in an aggressive strategy to represent as much content as possible, if only to take it out of its competition hands.

On a related note, the director of the French office of Getty Images continues in the tradition of making false statements when he proudly announces that Getty was the first agency to license an image online in 1995 . He’s got a good excuse, he wasn’t at Getty at the time so he’s just repeating what his corporate communicator told him to say. Finally, the real amusing part is that his portrait used to illustrate the article is credited “DR“. At least there is one constant : Corpocrates will remain corpocrates.

Posted in transaction, photojournalism, Corpocrates, editorial, france, corbis, law, getty | Print | 2 Comments »