July 22, 2010 by pmelcher.

So, it seems that most people would consider that we have reach a turning point in our industry. Which one, no one is really sure. Let’s see if we can fix that.

What happens when people are asked to perform the same task for less  compensation they are used to receiving ? Well, they use the same skills they have always used but in less time, as they try to augment the number of jobs they can perform, in order to increase their revenue ( or at least keep them flat). Thus, they come out with more or less the same product or service, but just less worked upon. It caries less quality, less commitment, less attention to details.

When amateurs entered the  commercial stock market via microstock, they where very lucky. No one was looking for high end quality images, just images that did the trick. Art Directors and Graphic designers, using microstock, were looking for images that fit their needs, but no more. And that was fine because their was no masterpiece in there. As the market grew, contributors quickly realized that this was number games. The more images you could upload in the least amount of time could render selling via microstock a profitable proposition. And so they did.

Today the market, both from  amateur and pro offering , is filled with these images. They are ok; they are Good Enough. Because the image buyers are also under the same budget/time constrain, they are quite satisfied with that offering since they also will not spend the time to research more.

And so, here we are, in 2010 in the “Good Enough” market.  This middle place between perfect and not so good. It’s a comfort zone that satisfies all the available element : Time, Budget and Expectation. Those who handle the budget, those God-like figure that stand omnipotent behind any photography job , have unleashed a new powerful attribute to our everyday lives. And we all have  followed. Photo agencies have also lowered their standards and have accepted images they would have never accepted 10 years ago. There is nothing wrong with that : 10 years ago, there was no market for “goodenough” images. Today, there is.

Of course, the snake eats its own tail. This widening of the market allows more contributors to enter their offering, because that is the only thing they can do : Good enough images.

Who suffers ? Well quality suffers, obviously. Since it is not rewarding anymore to spend a lot of time on images, no one really does. If someone is happy with a half done job then that is great. Perfectionist suffer as their market is diminishing.

Who else ? Well, image consumers, obviously. They don’t get to see great images anymore. Just illustrations that didn’t cost too much to purchase and fit the need. No more, no less.

And don’t think for a second that this is a microstock only issue. Photojournalism, celebrity, sports, portraits,  wedding, every aspect of the photography world has been affected by the “Good Enough” mentality. Publications are quite satisfied in publishing good enough images and nothing more. Look at Time and Newsweek, for example. They are now full of wire service images which are the supreme masters in providing good enough images.

Even websites, supposedly on the cutting edge of  media publishing, use images by the pound, regardless of their quality. They are not looking to secure rights to superb images : Just those that fit the need. Who cares if their are not great, they didn’t cost much.

It seems to be fine with everyone : They pay less, they expect less.  Readers, especially online since it’s free, also know they cannot be demanding.

Maybe at the tail end of this recession we will see the resurgence of the exceptional, the high quality, the amazing.  For now, however,  it seems  we will  continue to fill our lives with good enough and dream of a better future.

Posted in license, web 2.0, celebrity, magazine, commercial stock, prosumer, flickr, editorial, transaction, finance, photojournalism, Microstock | Print | 1 Comment »

July 19, 2010 by pmelcher.

Man I love what this guy has to say :

Posted in license, multimedia, Search, TIME, celebrity, magazine, E Reader, commercial stock, technology, web 2.0, prosumer, news, corbis, getty, editorial, transaction, flickr, photojournalism, finance, Microstock | Print | 3 Comments »

July 15, 2010 by pmelcher.

Stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about your clients. Here and there, and almost everywhere you hear, or read, photographers and photo agencies complaining about this or about that. Their complains can be resumed to : ” But what about me”

Always starts with “I “. I used to make more money, I used to shoot this, I , I , I. aie.  Maybe the reason you are not making any money is because you do not think about your clients. They have shifted, evolved, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. Budgets or content, they needed to find other sources of photography. You, as you were continuing to think about “I”, you lost them.

The funny thing about sales, in any business, is that you always know how and why you gain new clients, but you never know why you loose them. They are tons of matrix to analyze  where new clients come from, what they do, how they purchase from you. But if they stop visiting you, you never know why. The reason is obvious : they are gone and you cannot communicate with them.

However, it is one of the most important piece of information that you might ever need; Why do you loose clients. Sure you can speculate. It’s my competitor pricing, it’s because I am too good, etc, etc. Because you do not have any hard data, the assumption is that it’s always someone else fault, not yours.

Well, recession or not, your clients retention should be the most important activity you have. You want them to come back, over and over again, even if you are not the cheapest. Because, unlike your new clients, you know them, their needs, their payments, their tastes. So much emphasis is made these days in new client marketing while nothing is done for current customer retention.

The same you probably managed to grab someones customer, someone else will take yours. Because you obviously do not care. You want new, now. Shouldn’t your growth of your business be measures as much by how many customers you retain than how many new you sign up ? Do you pay attention to their needs instead of looking for new markets ? Sure you can find yourself a niche, but what happens to your faithful customers, will they follow you ? Do they even care if you tweet ?

So turn the chair around. Stop looking at what you could do and focus on what can be done. Stop wasting energy ( and cash) on prospect and start fixing the leaks. Why are you loosing clients, why do they go for cheaper ? Do they feel that your content is not worth that much anymore? Did you even notice they left ?

Start building a sound and safe foundation instead of thinking about the tower . Sure new client marketing is cool and graphically challenging. But your stuff was cool too for those that still purchase from you. Why ignore them? So stop with the”I” complain and start listening to them.

Posted in technology, lens, commercial stock, focus, license, transaction, photojournalism, Midstock, editorial | Print | No Comments »

July 8, 2010 by pmelcher.

 Breaking news: Getty backs off the Rex Features deal..

See Getty’s internal email:

From: Nick Evans-Lombe, Chief Operating Officer and Adrian Murrell, SVP Global Editorial

Hello,

As you know, in April we announced our intention to purchase Rex Features. We decided to voluntarily go to the Office of Fair Trading in the UK for them to review this acquisition, and today they have released their findings. Their decision is that the deal should be referred to the Competition Commission and, as such, we shall not be pursuing this acquisition any further.

Below you can find the statement we are giving reactively, to this news:

“We are disappointed that our proposed acquisition of Rex Features has been referred to the Competition Commission and we respectfully disagree with the preliminary concerns expressed by the Office of Fair Trading. Given the distraction that this next phase could potentially bring to both Getty Images and Rex Features, and the parties’ desire to focus their business resources on the production and delivery of high quality services to their customers, we have decided not to pursue this acquisition any further. We still believe Rex Features to be a strong and valuable business and we wish the Rex Features team the very best in the future.”

Also attached is an FAQ document outlining some potential Q&A’s that may be helpful, particularly to sales, who may get asked about this decision/news. This document is confidential and is not for external distribution.

Any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact Adrian or myself. Should you or your team receive any questions from media, please refer them immediately to Alison Crombie.

Regards,

Nick Evans-Lombe & Adrian Murrell

—————————— This was written prior to the email above —————————————————

Apparently the swallowing of Rex features by Getty Images is not going so smoothly. The Office of Fair Trading in the UK has issued a press release ( see Below) stating that it will review its position on the acquisition and decide if it can move forward. The verdict will come at the end of this year, in December.

This is not good news, either for Getty or Rex Features. Rex finds itself as a sitting duck, unable to invest or retreat as it has to wait in position for the final verdict. In an economy that shifts brutally, that is not a good position to be in. The longer this drags, the longer it gives suppliers, which Rex highly depends on, to move somewhere else, as the future of Rex is uncertain.

For Getty, this is the first time that they are seriously starting to feel the Monopoly barrier. It is expected, that after purchasing so many of its competitor, that Getty, one day, will be denied any new acquisition by government eager to protect a fair market. Maybe this will be the first time. And if it is, this will certainly be a precedent for all other countries investigating Getty for monopolistic attributes.

Finally, for both, this will certainly mean a huge distraction, full of lawyers, filings, paperwork and money being spend in trying to convince the Office .

What is particularly interesting is that customers are complaining about the merger more than other competitor. Getty’s dream of becoming the absolute one stop shop of photography in order to better serve image buyers might also be hitting a brick wall of discontent. Well it is certainly helpful to find all of your images needs in one location, the fear of monopolistic pressure in price, and offering, is becoming stronger .

This is certainly not good news either for Hellman & Friedman, the private equity firm that purchased Getty images for $2Billion a few years . ago. As they always do, they had purchased  Getty in order to sale it later. If the company becomes branded as a pre monopolistic  business than no one will want to even want to remotely approach it.

OFT refers Getty/Rex merger to the Competition Commission

The OFT today referred the anticipated acquisition by Getty Images, Inc. of Rex Features Limited to the Competition Commission for further investigation.

Getty and Rex are two of the largest suppliers of photographic images for editorial use by publications in the UK. Getty has significant strength in the supply of both archive and current entertainment-related editorial images. The OFT is concerned that, if the merger is allowed to go ahead, the loss of Rex as an independent competitor could enable Getty to increase prices for customers.

During its investigation, the OFT heard a significant number of concerns from third parties, which supported the view that the profiles and extensive image archives of Getty and Rex mean they are close competitors.

The OFT considered carefully whether there would be sufficient constraint on Getty from existing agencies and/or new entrants into the market. However, the evidence available on this was inconclusive, and therefore there remains a realistic prospect of a substantial lessening of competition.

Amelia Fletcher, OFT Senior Director of Mergers, said:

‘This merger would bring together two of the largest and closest competitors for the supply of archive and entertainment images within the UK. A number of publishers, the key customers in this market, are concerned about the potential impact of the acquisition.

‘Some of the information available to the OFT in this case was patchy and inconsistent. We have not been able to rule out competition concerns on the basis of this evidence, and so the right course of action is to refer the merger for a fuller investigation by the Competition Commission.’

The Competition Commission is expected to report by 23 December 2010.

NOTES

1. The Reference Test - The OFT has a duty to make a reference to the Competition Commission if the OFT believes that it is or may be the case that arrangements are in progress or in contemplation which, if carried into effect, will result in the creation of a relevant merger situation; and the creation of that situation may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the United Kingdom for goods or services.
2. Under the Enterprise Act 2002 a relevant merger situation is created if two or more enterprises have ceased to be distinct enterprises; and the value of the turnover in the United Kingdom of the enterprise being taken over exceeds £70 million; or as a result of the transaction, in relation to the supply of goods or services of any description, a 25 per cent share of supply in the UK (or a substantial part thereof) is created or enhanced.
3. The Competition Commission may extend the 24 week period within which it is required to publish its report by no more than eight weeks if it considers that there are special reasons why the report cannot be published within that period.
4. The text of these decisions will be placed on the Office of Fair Trading’s web site at www.oft.gov.uk  as soon as is reasonably practicable.

Posted in finance, license, celebrity, commercial stock, transaction, editorial, Royalty free, getty, law, Microstock | Print | 1 Comment »

June 13, 2010 by pmelcher.

Posted in license, copyright, commercial stock, prosumer, transaction, corbis, law, Microstock | Print | 1 Comment »

June 10, 2010 by pmelcher.

It is not just soccer frenzy that has been hitting Europe these days, it is also price slashing. In perfect timing with the Cepic Congress in Dublin, DKimages, announces a full month of £30.00 ( $43.00 or € 36.00) per image regardless of size and position.

“To celebrate the tournament in South Africa all images ordered online and used on an inside page at any size will be charged at £30.00.
This offer is open to all magazine titles, trade press, newspapers, national, regional and supplements and starts now. “.. says the press release. How the reduced pricing is related to the World Cup took me hours to figure out…And I didn’t.

Since it is not related to the number of teams/countries involved ( 32), nor is it related to the number of World Cup since it’s begging ( Less than 20) , nor does it have a link to the circumference of a soccer ball ( 27-28 inches), or the number of players on a team ( 11) , or the length of a game ( 90 minutes), it can only be one thing:

Someone at DKimage got hit really hard by a soccer ball in the face and came up with this correlation : ” I know..”, he/she said, with his index finger raised to the sky…”let’s make all our images available for a crappy cheap price . And since a soccer ball is round, like the earth, let’s make that price £30 .00!!!”.

Highbrows were raised, eyes interlocked , suspicion arose, forehead were scratched, a few throats were delicately cleared, a solitary fly buzzed around. Since the ball must of hit some high executive, no one argued.

If DKimages had lots and lots of pictures of Soccer to license, this would still somewhat make sense. But they don’t. The only thing that makes sense is that they do not want to be bothered while they watch the Cup so they priced everything low and at one price so they can set their machines to automated billing and quietly resume watching the telly. “Here you go” their press release says” take all these images, use them as you want and just pay us 3o quid . We’re busy watching the games. We will be back in July”.

Regardless, why anyone keeps on thinking that the only solution to selling more images is to slash price is still a complete mystery?  It is insulting to those who just bough the same image previously for a higher price and only confirms people’s opinion that your images are worthless . Furthermore, it also shows that you decide their value with the help of your foot.

After Photoshot, DKimages seems in a desperate position and willing to do anything to grab some attention with an ill-fated promotion . They might has well give their whole collection to a microstock company and close shop. They might actually see more sales.

Flier here :

Posted in license, magazine, commercial stock, No sense, CEPIC, editorial, transaction, finance, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

June 8, 2010 by pmelcher.

At your tables, chairs set…ready ? 1, 2, 3.. Go . The freshly renamed  Centre of Photography ( Cepic) Congress  is about to start in Dublin, Ireland, in what is now an annual gathering of photographic convenience stores. Wide computer screens boringly pushing one lifeless image after another, hundreds of neatly arranged 4 seats tables ( no more, no less), a huge hall of sedated whispering, and every hour, on the hour, the delicately pre-arrange ballet of musical chairs. The only thing that changes, year after year, is the location. But does anyone even notice?

The CEPIC congress is  Einstein’s definition of insanity at its best : Doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.  Punctuated by “talks” from self-proclaimed “experts”, “gurus” or “coaches”, whose only claimed to photo knowledge is to have been recently vomited from an highly paid executive position at one of the photo corporations, it repeats, year after year, the same pattern of stubborn  blindness. Year after year, its resembles more and more a meeting of eggs in a closet whose shells show signs of heavy cracking.

Why this assembly of  Commercial Stock photography suppliers continue to be so closed on itself, so violently persistent in its obsessions, so un-creative, so resilient to change, is becoming a boring mystery.

The grand old pompous  IPTC Consortium will hold it cyclical marathon session repeating over and over the same things, demanding full respect by obstination, claiming high and loud that is it a standard when it can’t even get two software companies to agree on  the same field name.  The Plus coalition will continue to speak highly of its endless and obsolete development, announcing more and more board room agreements that are never implemented. The same faces, the same voices will take the stage, (also behind tables), to fill the stuffy word space with vague and inconsequential statements, in front of a sparse and half asleep audience. Finally, night after night, all will reunite to wash the whole thing down with huge amount of free alcohol.

Sure, the CEPIC is relevant because it allows for agents and suppliers to meet at one place and one time, do their little business, and go back home, agreeably satisfied with a job well done. It gives everyone who attends a sense of safe continuity, the sense that, after all, everything will be alright.

Here is what to expect : More will be said about microstock (snooze), vendors will painfully try to sell software solutions to agencies that do not have any money to invest, arguments will be made about switching to licensing video (really ?), old timers will parade the halls looking for some self-gratifying recognition, lots and lots of notes will be taken on blocks, pens will be given away, and people will cross each other saying ” Sorry, I don’t have the time to talk, I have a meeting with…”, all day long. There will be more talks about how keywords will save you, search is key and of course, a lot of comparing size of collections.

Something new ? Of course, social media will be discuss ad vomitum : Twitter will save you, you GOTTA have a Facebook account,  viral this and viral that, Youtube, Flickr, Foursquare , Tumblr,   along with SEO and Google this and Google that. If you do not have or working on a Ipad/Iphone apps this year, you will be considered a loser. You GOTTA have an App.

People will also hear that you need to create a Niche. Because that is only way to survive : a niche. In other words, they will tell you to get out out of Getty’s way, because you can’t compete, and find a corner, where, hopefully they will not find you.  Problem is with this strategy is that a succesful niche is not a niche anymore, its a target. And, in industry where everyone, absolutely everyone is looking for  market share, becoming a target is not good news.

They will also tell you about Freemium, as they have freshly come out of reading the book, forgetting to tell you that the only companies that can afford Freemium strategies are those that are very well funded. Or to think “Long Tail” because it’s a cool concept, no knowing exactly what it means.

The Cepic congress is a big feel good gathering, like a giant therapeutic group hug , where everyone leaves satisfied that everything will be alright and to continue business as usual. It’s a soporific ego satisfier, a yearly lobotomy. Everyone pats each other cracked egg shell fully knowing that only accepted growth business model is to screw each other.

For CEPIC to one day be relevant again, it needs to go through a violent change. It needs to elect young Presidents ( 30 or younger), it needs to invite speakers from outside the industry, it needs to start looking 5 years ahead and not 10 years backwards. It needs to bring image buyers, photographers, creatives, thinkers. What it really needs is to come out of its highly reactionary protective bubble and destroys those crippling walls that they think are protecting them.

Posted in IPTC, keyword, license, Plus, commercial stock, technology, flickr, slideshow, getty, Royalty free, corbis, transaction, CEPIC, finance, Microstock | Print | 6 Comments »

May 28, 2010 by pmelcher.

Photography, like most industries affected by a center of gravity shift to digital, has experienced more than a migration from film to data packets. One of the most fundamental shift, however,  is how the decision process moved from quality of content to cost. Let me explain:

For a long time, the key decision in purchasing a license for any photograph had been it’s quality, it’s relevance to the intended usage. Sometimes, the photograph even outperformed its intended use, it was so good.  Cost, because it was perceived as a tool of value, was not an issue. Magazines had absolutely no problem in spending a lot of money to send photographers around the world and back in order to get the best images.

In fact, a lot of the magazines’ competition was done on newsstands with whom had the best cover. It was a badge of honor.

As images became easier and cheaper to transport thanks to falling memory prices as well as more readily available and cheaper bandwidth, the prices also started to drop. The cameras, the lens, the post processing, the traveling certainly did not drop. Just the cost of getting an image form A to B. Somehow, however, the belief that digital was cheaper to produce took root and, like a bad venom, infected  the whole industry.

Getting the best photographer to the location suddenly did not become a necessity. Getting the images faster took over. The best images was replaced by the fastest. Let’s just pick a photographer that is there already and get those images in. Assignment no longer included transportation to and fro. That lasted for a while as the still high cost of technology paired with the difficult technological learning curve kept the competition to a select few. However, that did not last long. Cost of equipment as well as it’s ease of use quickly lowered, allowing more and more to enter the competition for the fastest image.

Since it is impossible to transmit an image before it is taken, the competition hit a wall where everyone found themselves at the same level, transmitting as fast. So what happened ? prices dropped. The competition, as well as the usage decision, shifted again, this time to the cheapest.

Today, this is where we are : Decisions are no longer made on the quality of content but on its cost. It really doesn’t matter if your the next Cartier-Bresson, if you are too expensive, you won’t get published. If the photo budget is already spend on two or three subscriptions to photo agencies and your images are not part of the “feed”, forget it. You might as well go fishing. They will like your images, they just won’t use them.

What magazine readership do not see, is that they are paying to read publications that do not show them the best pictures but rather the cheapest. It is a very deceptive procedure. Don’t magazine attract your attention by the promise of delivering what they consider the best ?  Yet, as far as photography is concerned, they don’t. The rule has become to fit the image purchasing process within a pre-established budget. No longer do editors beleive that great images can boost readership. Instead, they beleive cheaper images will save them from oblivion.

How long would you continue to go to your favorite restaurant once you knew that they didn’t even try to purchase better product but just the cheapest ? This reminds us of those houses build with cheap dry wall imported from China that eventually made everyone badly sick. Sure, they were cheaper, and yes, cheap photography is not bad for your health. At least, not that we know of.

Photographs have a better chance to be published these days if they are cheap, not if they are good.

It is sad. Sad because there a great images being shot everyday that will never, never be seen because of this dictatorship of the wallet. Sad, because readers are being lied to by this money censorship. Sad because it is helping no one.

As magazine or website publishers continue to think in terms of broadcasting (One to many), our world is changing to social (many to many). Consumers are quickly evolving from passive participants to active contributors. As this migration is deepening, more will search for their own sources of photography that they will in turn grab and share. They will start invading the publishing world with images that they like rather than those that are being force fed to them by penny-pincher corpocrates. They will deconstruct and break the barriers of the conglomerate publishing world in order to resubmit their own vision of the world. It is already going in the world of text journalism, it will not be long before photography gets swept in.

It is no longer a viable proposition to beleive that image consumers will continue to just passively absorb cheap content. The barriers  that kept the suppliers of images invisible to the readers  have fallen, permitting them, for the first time in the history of photography, an unprecedented access to the source. They can now see where publications get their content from and make their own decisions. Ironically, as publications divert more and more what they use to the cheapest, the rest of the production become more and more visible, making their money censorship more obvious.

Obviously,  this uncomfortable situation is not going to last long. Photographers and photo agencies will soon be forced into finding lucrative ways to supply their images directly to the readers, by-passing those publishers who have refused to use them for monetary reasons. Some already do.

There is another revolution lurking here and once again, the photography world will never be the same.

Posted in copyright, license, multimedia, celebrity, magazine, E Reader, technology, newspaper, web 2.0, transaction, editorial, news, finance, wire service, prosumer, photojournalism, getty | 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 »