July 6, 2010 by pmelcher.

So, the French minister of Culture ( at least they have one) descends to the Arles photo festival like a conqueror and announces, probably very proud of himself, that he and his photo committee he created a while back,  will create a photo portal. A French one, in three languages ( French , English and ???).

70,000 images are supposed to be made available to the public and amateur thanks to this portal. Nothing is said about what photography, from where, edited by whom, for what purpose ? Just 70,000 images; Et Voila. Packs his stuff into his limo and goes back to take a early afternoon nap in his hot office in Paris.

And we are left to wonder: From the country that has laws banning street photography, from the country that has created  social laws responsible for the death and suffering of many photo agencies and their photographers, from the country that has banned citizen photojournalism, that is all they could come out with ?

If they really wanted to help photography, the French government would do a few things : Repel the law that forces everyone to blur faces of people in public spaces, repel the law that makes illegal to photograph a news item if you are not a professional, repel the law that makes photo agencies responsible for more than 75% of free lancer contribution to social security. This is what is killing photography in France, not the lack of a “tri langual pro/amateur photo” portal.

If they really wanted to save photography, wouldn’t they help photography live and breath instead of creating a useless on line museum that will cost millions and sit unused. France already has one huge portal of photography for professional called PixPalace. Why create a state sponsored competition ?

Why don’t they rather make an institution that gives out grants and supports young ( and not so young photographers) in their projects? Why don’t they reward websites or print magazine for their usage of photography? Why don’t they create incentives instead of museums ?

There might be a long time before this online photo portal ever sees the day of light since everything take a long time in France ( years, decades). It is just so very frustrating  to see a minister who made a movie about the Rapho agency, who contains such great  photographers as Robert Doisneau, Édouard Boubat, Denis Brihat, Jean Dieuzaide, Bill Brandt, Izis, André Kertész, Yousuf Karsh, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Janine Niépce, Willy Ronis, Emile Savitry, and Sabine Weiss, continue to support a law that would have made these photographer unable to practice their trade.

Furthermore, in a society that is about to ban the wearing of Burqa’s because it hides women’s face, it is quite ironic that they force publications to hide the face of people in photographs.

I have an idea : Let’s go on strike.

more , in French

Posted in Search, celebrity, magazine, technology, No sense, photojournalism, france, editorial, filter, law | Print | 1 Comment »

May 26, 2010 by pmelcher.

It used to be the recession. Companies would shed dead branches and blame it on the recession even if it wasn’t the real cause. But not Corbis. it missed that boat. Instead, and what irony, it blames photographers. The announcement, at the eve of a long three day week-end, of the total and complete liquidation of Corbis Sygma, came as a surprise.

Never before did the Seattle based Bill Gates owned company had ever admitted failure is such a big scale. It used to be that they would acquire healthy companies, get rid of all the people that had made them succesful, water down the archives , integrate them into a vast digital mash up and the job was done. Promises were forever abandoned, names synonym with success would forever vanish into oblivion, pictures would sink deeply into a immense tasteless database. The triumph of the corpocartes. The rule by committee at it’s best. The Borgs (resistance is futile: You will be assimilated) of the photo industry had talent at erasing any and all traces of those companies it had so proudly acquired. In  it’s typical corporate arrogance, it never admitted failure. Just successive strategy changes.

Back in the 90’s Bill Gates wanted a  news agency. He had the Bettmann Archives, he now wanted something more lively. The Co-Ceo’s at the time went shopping for the boss. For a while, it was the financially weakest (at the time) SIPA that was heavily courted. But it’s legendary owner, Goskin Sipahioglu, could not surrender himself to the idea of being run by incompetents, whatever the amount would be. So all eyes turned to Sygma. In a more precarious financial situation with an exhausted management team, incapable to fund it’s much needed transition to digital, it surrendered much easier. Like others before, it thought that Corbis would help. Instead, it tried to swallow it.

This one was just too big. Arguments, strikes, misunderstandings, culture shock,  mismanagement, incompetence followed. Instead of listening, Corbis send it’s minions to make the Sygma beast surrender to it’s will. That cost some more millions. Since Sygma was losing money when acquired, there was no reason for the senior management of Corbis, at the time, to listen. Or so they thought. They proceeded with their assimilation plan. However, when you have a news photo agency run by people who are trained in licensing commercial stock or archival images, it doesn’t work. When decisions cannot be made without marathon meetings, and least, 2 to 300, 000 exchanges of emails, there is little, or no chance, for a news agency to survive. No way. And since Corbis thought of itself as infallible (probably some Microsoft legacy carried over by it’s owner), whatever they did was right…Or so they thought.

But they couldn’t stop the bleeding. And they couldn’t completely swallow it. So after reducing it to 29 people, changing it into a stock agency, spending what they claim is 20 millions dollars into a remote facility to protect it’s assets, it is now, for the first time, throwing the towel.

It used a ridiculous judgment as an excuse : 1,5 million euros for 750 lost images. That is 2,000 Euros per image. Corbis has just recently claim victory, in the USA, for a $7 per image verdict. What a difference. But let’s not be fooled. Even if their assets had been seized by the French justice, this was too good an opportunity to pass. As it’s current not for long manager said, Stefan Biberfeld,  ” Our tax debts  have risen to 73 millions in the last 10 years and we have lost 2 millions Euros just in 1999″.

Let’s stop right here. A few things to note. Why is a lawyer running a photo news agency ? Does that make any sense . Stefan Biberfeld was Senior Corporate Council, EMEA,  overseeing the Sygma Preservation and Access Initiative before becoming its managing director. Why else if it wasn’t to run a “straight to the ground” strategy?

Side note : EMEA, for those who don’t know, is a corpocrate lingo to say “Europe,Middle East, Africa” because, as we all know, it’s the same thing. Well, at least for Americans.

Another note : Sygma was losing $ 2 million in 1999, when Corbis acquired it. The tone of the phrase hints at this going on, maybe even worse after. 10 years at $2million, that is $20 million. Same as what Corbis spend on the Facility. That is $40 million total. Plus that $73 million in tax debt. That’s $113 million. Dominique Aubert’s claim to $2 million for lost transparencies seem very little in comparison, doesn’t it?.

So let’s cut the crap here: Corbis closes Sygma because it was bleeding money and didn’t know what to do. Corbis closes Sygma because of poor management. It closed Sygma because they couldn’t make it work, like everything else they bought. But not after securing distribution contracts with the best photographers so that Daddy Corbis can continue to license the content . The rest ? thrown into the air. Who cares? 29 people will lose their job, which, in this economy, is also nothing.

According to Michel Puech, the judgment, executed yesterday in Paris, was a lonely event. No screams, no cries, hardly anyone. Corbis management representatives were on call to acquiesce and leave. That beer must have tasted quite good.

Photographers have 4 months to claim their images, after which they become “rights free”, meaning whomever purchases them has  the rights to license them.

Sygma, the name, the legacy, the history, the people who build it, the photographers who died for it, it’s impact on the world, forgotten. Forever.

Thank Guys. we really needed that.

Posted in finance, license, copyright, commercial stock, transaction, editorial, news, law, france, corbis | Print | 2 Comments »

May 21, 2010 by pmelcher.

According to an article in the French press, the subsidiary of Corbis, Sygma, has just filed for bankrupcy protection.

“I am unable to pay my creditors,” said Stefan Biberfeld, director of Sygma, which was founded in 1973 and was purchased in 1999 by the American company Corbis, owned by Bill Gates personally.

The reason  (something we wrote about here a while back) :  Sygma was found guilty of losing original images  of photographer Dominique Aubert and fined 1.5 million Euros ( about $2 million Dollars) . The company had then its property, equipment and bank account seized by  the French Justice.

Apparently a bankruptcy would not work as any buyer  would  also be face with the same fines and possibly more brought forth by other photographers .

“Our tax debts  have risen to 73 millions in the last 10 years and we have lost 2 millions Euros just in 1999″ continues the manager. 29 full time employees currently working at Sygma risk losing their jobs and the destiny of millions of images is unknown. Corbis had just recently spend a huge amount of money to relocate the Sygma in a safe and climate controlled facility just outside of Paris.

Obviously, Corbis  has decided not to protect it’s company and decided, probably after crushing numbers, that it was no longer worth it. While it won a judgment against Chris Usher for losing thousands of his negatives and paying back a ridiculous $7 per image,it couldn’t do anything against the French legislation that is more pro photographer (and certainly more against big American businesses)

More on the fate of Sygma will be known at next Tuesday’s hearing.

Posted in finance, photojournalism, copyright, celebrity, transaction, editorial, corbis, news, law, france, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

April 26, 2010 by pmelcher.

Details are still sketchy as the official announcement will be made at 5 PM ( UK time) but according to sources, the London staff has just be informed of the purchase. They might be waiting to inform the Berliner staff, located in Los Angeles, bought by Rex Features a few years back. This acquisition makes sense.

After many years of trying alone,  Getty Images has never succeeded in taking the number one place from Old timer Rex Features. They desperately tried. Thus, in a true and tried fashion, if Getty cannot beat, Getty purchases.

This is going to rock the photo agency world in many levels and in a lot of countries outside the UK. Rex Features does not own much content and has mostly been a distributor of various content. One thinks primarily of SIPA, which has been a key associate of Rex since its beginning.  Will SIPA continue to get Rex’s material for France ? Will Rex Getty still distribute them in the UK ? And what about the little celebrity agency Berliner in LA? Does Getty need another celebrity agency on top of Filmmagic, Wireimage, Buzzfoto , AFP and their own ?

Maybe the 5PM relase will give us more info. But then, probably not.

*******************

PRESS RELEASE “Celebrity and entertainment content is a growing and vital part of the editorial imagery industry and this acquisition positions us to meet and exceed the demand for nearly instantaneous material,” said Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images. “Growing our entertainment imagery business continues to be a key strategic focus. The real winners will be our customers, who can now expect to see greater choice and more easily accessible imagery.”

Getty Images intends to maintain Rex Features’ brand and with the combined resources of Getty Images and Rex Features, Getty Images will continue to generate new imagery for their respective celebrity and entertainment collections. Additionally, Getty Images’ global distribution channels will increase international customers’ access to Rex Features’ products and services.

The acquisition of Rex Features was driven by the continually evolving celebrity imagery business and gives Getty Images more coverage capabilities for events and portraiture and will expand the entertainment and celebrity imagery segment.

“Over more than five decades, Rex Features has built a strong heritage and reputation that Getty Images will build upon to the benefit of customers worldwide,” added Klein. “Getty Images has always been dedicated to making strategic investments that will provide long-term value to our customers.

Posted in SIPA, celebrity, magazine, transaction, editorial, news, france, getty | Print | 6 Comments »

March 5, 2010 by pmelcher.

The Gamma/ Eyedea sinking ship saga continues : 4 companies/ projects have  filed to be considered for the reprisal of the almost defunct Company. French Number one photo agency, ABACA Press, Verdoso Media, Frank Ullman and a pair of ex bosses of Gamma. No Getty ( for once) , No Corbis.

The buying price ? A symbolic 100,000 to 150,00 Euros. Hachette Filipacchi Photo, ex owner of this group of photo agencies, had sold it to its current owners for 600,000 Euros. Not much of a profit here, if you also consider the money invested since, and lost. The main role of the court now is to figure out which of this project is the most viable. Their main focus is to see how many jobs can be saved. Out of the 60 + currently on staff, not more than 30 are expected to stay.

The good news ? There seem to be some interest by French companies to save the group of images and bring it, finally, into the 21st century. Most might be thinking that this move will get them the good favors of the French Government who will them jump in and  pour some welcome cash, or incentives. However, like everything in France, it is going to take a while for the decision to be made.

On a similar note, Retna UK, not to be confused with Retna USA, has sold, again. Now, it is to Photoshot, a agency eating company that seems to buy anything and everything hanging low from the tree. Wonder why they didn’t not bid for Eyedea/Gamma.

It’s Friday, don’t forget to look at images today…

Posted in celebrity, magazine, photojournalism, transaction, law, france, news | Print | No Comments »

January 19, 2010 by pmelcher.

So you would think that with all the problems that online publications are causing to the print magazine industry, they would fight back in some manner. The print paper world would be all gang ho in trying to secure its predominance as the primary source of news and information so that the crowds would rush to purchase copies. But no.

It’s a complete lethargy. Well, at least in the USA. Take editorial photography. As much as they care if an image has been used in a competing publication, they completely ignore anything online.  They seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that they come out sometimes with the same image that has been seen previously for more than a week on numerous websites. As if no one paid attention. However, with some URL’s drawing millions of visitors , and most, the same people they also try to attract, it should be hard to ignore.

Yet, they continue to ignore the reasons for their decline. Partly to save money ( as if it is going to help) , partly because a completely blindness to the forces that are shaping their market. If I have seen an image numerous times, for free, online, I am going to be a bit upset if I see it, again, days, weeks later, in a print publication I had to pay for. If it happens once, I could ignore it. If it happens issue after issues, I would want my money back.

No other industry has this approach to its consumer. Movies only show trailers, music have just snippets ( of  course, I am not mentioning stolen material) and you pay to hear/see the full version. If all was available online  a week before they could be purchased, it is doubtful that a lot of people would pay for them.

Magazines, in some sort of oblivious superiority,  continue to publish , week after weeks, month after months the same images already seen online more than once. Maybe they think that if they ignore it, the problem might disappear. Maybe they think that by the time they come out, readers will have forgotten what they had seen just hours ago on a website. Maybe they just think that their support is so superior than the digital, no one will notice.

The second issue with this, a bit more hidden, is that photogrpahers and photo agencies provide website with a free first right  at a lesser fee than  what a print publication would pay. In other words, website get to use the same image, much sooner than print for 10% of the price that a magazine pays to use it a week later. Does it make any sense ?

In France, for example, no magazine would ever publish an image that has been used on a website previously. None. Photo agencies or photographers do not have a problem with that since website pay so little, it is not even funny. Thus, readers can be sure that will discover new image in every issue. And with just cause, they paid for that, and other privilege. They paid to purchase a  product that do not consider them like fools. They pay for originality. They pay for what they value.

In the upcoming or ongoing debate about online pay walls, how many of the newspapers, magazines and others will take the step to guarantee original photography ? Because if it is to see another slideshow made of pictures from the trilogy (Getty, AP, Reuters ) that you can see anywhere else, I doubt people will be happy. And if they are not happy, well, they won’t pay. A pay wall will only work if people want to get in. And people will want to get in if the content inside is not something seen elsewhere for free.

The war between original content ( expensive) and  cost cutting  (cheap) is raging with  cost-cutting seemingly winning most battles these days. However, creating something for cheap that no one wants to pay for is not at all a guarantee of success. Once the CFO’s and their bosses finish destroying the very nature of what made their companies successful in a rarely seen slaughterhouse of talent, there will be only a few standing. And those will not be the ones that are the cheapest to operate but those who have found the zen like balance between originality, quality, cost and timeliness.

Photography will always be here to offer  all of this and much, much more. We know it, we are just waiting for them to understand it.

Posted in license, newspaper, celebrity, magazine, Newsweek, TIME, photojournalism, editorial, transaction, finance, wire service, france | Print | No Comments »

December 24, 2009 by pmelcher.

Today should be a day to rejoice, worldwide. People all over the world close their doors, and eyes, from the surrounding world and regroup in their family cocoon to enjoy a few hours of peace and serenity. Outside, the battles still rages creating more casualties.

French newspaper le Monde just announced that collective photo agency, L’oeil Public, was filing for bankruptcy.  For those who only care about what is happening in their own country, or even backward, that might mean nothing. However, like a upcoming storm, events that will soon be over your head tend to start somewhere else. L’oeil Public was one of the most successful collective in the past ten years. Composed of a handful of very talented photogrpahers, they had managed to elevate social photojournalism to new heights. Mostly specialized in french social events, they were not afraid to tackle international events if they deemed important enough L’oeil was one of the rare few collective to have managed to cross the Atlantic successfully , getting regular assignment from US publication like Time or Newsweek.

A collective is not a photo agency. A collective is made up of like minded photographers who decide to pool some of their resource needs in order to reduce cost and help each other. It is a tad socialist concept, thus very unpopular in the USA as it might potentially lead to a communist revolution .

The reason for L’oeil’s closure is now becoming a banality : Falling prices and  lesser assignments. A declining demand for original photography thanks to a marketplace that is more eager to save money than make money. A marketplace that has become a playground for CFO’s and their armies of blindly dedicated bean counters. Where photojournalism has been replaced by coupon journalism, where photo editors recruit amateurs to submit free images and where photographer hold high and proud checks with $2 and $3 license sales while screaming ” This is Better than nothing”. It is a market place where pundits will tell you that the road to posterity is paved with Twitts, blogs and Facebook updates. That the next Google search could yield thousands if not millions of dollars and that SEO is your key to success, not photography. It is a marketplace where trade publications turn a blind eye to monopolistic behaviors and where cheap has replace talent. It is a marketplace  that now sees editorial sales fall to 8 and 11 cents a piece.

L’Oeil Public’s situation is certainly not  a fluke and should not be dismissed as extremely far and extremely irrelevant. It is what is awaiting a lot of businesses and individuals in the year to come. Prosperity in not just around the corner and the “something is better than nothing” mentality will not work.

Posted in TIME, license, magazine, Newsweek, photojournalism, finance, news, france, editorial, getty | Print | No Comments »

September 7, 2009 by pmelcher.

3 days of sounds and fury, signifying nothing. To paraphrase Shakespeare, this represent Perpignan Visa pour L’image this year. Only a quarter of the crowd of the previous year, less then half the booth of agencies, a paparazzi agency replacing Grazia Neri’s legendary location and a couple of citizen journalist agency present. As nightly projection continue to display images of dismembered human beings with more violence and gore than a Tarantino movie, the real sign of a massacre was around the agencies booths. And like those settlers being attacked by nasty Indians in those old westerns, a lot of photo agencies seem to regroup to better protect and defend themselves.

While one side the  continued to cry about the forever death of photojournalism kept on wailing, the other was counting its recent wounds : 30% drop in prices, subscriptions model by Getty pushing every country into a pathetic price war, the economy, always the economy, all were recurrent themes of conversation. But, interestingly enough, the mood was happy, jovial, optimistic . Even as the “depot de Bilan” of Gamma/Eyedea was the talk of the town and scores of major photo agencies, like Reuters, did not make it in the Palais, no one seemed quite down. Quite the opposite. Many countries are seeing photo agencies, once major competitors to each other, regrouping in co-ops, holdings, associations in order to better defeat the ravaging beast and its  Attila the Hun  inspired pricing model :  Getty images.

At the same time, many photogrpahers have seemingly dropped their photo agency and have gone solo, with quite a success.

And after deals were done, while the Palais du festival was closing under a clement sun and promises of successes to come, the photo exhibit were invaded by non professionals waiting in line to see the recent crop of images. Callie ’s images of Obama were probably the most popular, not only because they are spectacular, but certainly also because Obama himself is an object of fascination to the French population.

Consolidation, mergers, groups, holdings were certainly  the key words this year in the hallways of the Palais while optimism and creativity was the buzz word at the Cafe de La Poste, the fame location of the evening’s traditional bacchanal. Seems this Perpignan was the most lively and encouraging in many, many years.

Posted in photojournalism, license, magazine, slideshow, finance, news, france, editorial, getty | Print | No Comments »

August 9, 2009 by pmelcher.

The BBC posted, and probably aired, this video recently :

As usual with the BBC, it is full of errors and misconceptions:

1) It talks about Gamma/Eyedea yet shows only pictures from Sygma. It doesn’t say why Sygma ceased to be an active photo agency, implying it went bankrupt. Sygma was bought by Corbis ( need we say more?).

2) It explains that because of the recession, magazine are using “cheaper” celebrity images. Those who work in this industry, worldwide, know that celebrity images are not cheaper to use and license then war images. Most of the time they are much more expensive.

3) magazines using more celebrity images is not a recent economic trend brought forth by the recession, but a much longer trend, mostly created not to offend the advertisers : Magazine publisher can sign-up many more ads with celebs stories than they can with war images. They claim that’s what  people want to read. Just before shutting down.

4) Gamma, Sygma and war photographers are NOT competing  for space in publications against celebrity photographers. That is a pure fabricated lie. If celebrity photo agencies or photographers would stop shooting, magazines will not fill their pages with war images. The BBC is falling in the trap created many years ago by a poorly run photo agency claiming that if they couldn’t sell images, it was because of those cheap paparazzi shots. This fable is then supported by Agnes Gouvion St Cyr, French government’s photo spokesperson and probably the most boring person in photography.

5) There is no interview or even mention of Eyedea management team ? why ? or any management team ? Where did they go ? Couldn’t the BBC score an interview with them ? A more formal explanation would have been nice, no?

6) Claiming that the situation was brought forth by the rise of celebrity usage and not showing any management person results in “explaining” that this poor situation these agencies are facing is due to uncontrollable circumstances and are doomed. Never do they even remotely suggest that poor management could be behind the fall of these agencies. For Gamma/Eyedea, it would have taken the BBC no more than 10 minutes to figure it out.

6) Nice comment from the Corbis Sygma archive facility guy ” There is  no short term business model for this..” and yet doesn’t even explain the long term one.  Probably because like any Corbis’s business model, it is  “Bill Gates will pay for this”.

7) The only good guy to come out of this is photographer Noel Quidu who explains his predicament and how much he cares about the agency he helped build.

A much better and thorough article can be found in the New York Times today: read it here.

Posted in celebrity, magazine, license, photojournalism, france, editorial, news | Print | No Comments »

July 23, 2009 by pmelcher.

Gamma, recently renamed Eyedea by its new owners, Green recovery, is closing forever. The official date will be the 28 of July, 2009. This is a very sad day for photography worldwide. The “corpocrates” have won. They have succeeded in destroying one of the most beautiful photo agency in the world.

Hopefully we will see a rebirth of Rapho and others thanks to the will power of its photographers.

 Update : an article, in French, confirming the story. More to come

Update number 2 :  “In wanting to preserve it, Hachette destroyed it ” Raymond Depardon, Founder of Gamma. Read the short interview here, along with a quick reaction by Eyedea current CEO.

Posted in photojournalism, magazine, transaction, editorial, france, news | Print | No Comments »