Stock Tips: News From Photo Agencies

By Daryl Lang (PDN)

The latest on the stock photo business:

Getty's Future: Consumers, Music, And (Surprise) Acquisitions

In the next four months Getty Images plans to launch new a new consumer business and a music licensing service.

Some rare hints about upcoming products came during a presentation last Wednesday by Getty CEO Jonathan Klein at an Internet conference organized by Goldman Sachs.

"We plan to launch a consumer business in the next 90 to 120 days," Klein said, without revealing what the business is. He mentioned this in connection with Getty's new strategy of operating multiple Web sites for different customers – including gettyimages.com, iStockphoto.com and new acquisition PunchStock.

Klein also expressed hope that the text-only search ads sold through Google will eventually incorporate multimedia content, like photos and video, both of which Getty provides. On that note, he added, "We will be providing music to our customers within 90 days."

Klein declined to predict how big the music business could become. Getty competitor Jupitermedia runs a stock music service at RoyaltyFreeMusic.com, which is a relatively small part of Jupiterimages.

Klein was asked about the failed talks to acquire Jupitermedia and declined to say anything new. Later, Klein took a shot at archrival Corbis, saying, "I respect Corbis," but "It is worth pointing out that iStockPhoto made more profit yesterday than Corbis did in its entire history, and I think that matters in business."

Asked about Getty's financial priorities, Klein said, "The past is a really great guide for the future for us, and that's acquisitions, acquisitions, acquisitions. We're very good at doing acquisitions. I think we've done about 90. One of them was a complete disaster, and that was in 1999, the rest have worked out extremely well."

The 1999 failure he was referring to was Art.com – a consumer service that Getty gave up on in 2001.

Klein's presentation is available here.


More Getty News

- Getty Images has re-upped its deal with the National Hockey League and will remain the league's exclusive commercial imagery licensor for the next four years. Getty and the NHL have been in partnership since 2002.

- Newscom is now distributing 500,000 royalty-free photos from Getty Images. Collections represented include Digital Vision, Photodisc, Photographer's Choice, Retrofile, Stockbyte and National Geographic (a Getty partner).

- Pixsy, a company that provides search services for image collections, has teamed up with Getty-owned iStockphoto. All of iStock's images will be searchable through the Pixsy.com portal. Separately, Pixsy will power three new portals for specific kinds of stock photography for SuperStock, which is owned by a21.


Launches and deals

- Drive Images is a new right-managed stock library of 25,000 automotive images. The wholly owned collection was developed by eVox Productions, which also licenses images through third-party sites via its Automotive Image Library.

- London-based Photolibrary Group has launched a new collection called Fresh Food Images (FFI). FFI incorporates 200,000 images from 100 photographers, including the Anthony Blake Food Library.

- AP Images, the photo licensing arm of the Associated Press, is distributing content from the archives of EBONY and JET magazines, which are part of the Johnson Publishing Company.

- Software developer CogniSign recently launched a beta version of xcavator.net, a visual search engine. For now, the site is searching 300,000 images from Photovault.com, but the company expects to add more collections in the coming months.

- Alamy is distributing GoGo Images, a multicultural, royalty-free lifestyle collection.

- Imaginechina is now distributing the features and archive of Agence VU in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Imageinechina already represents photo agencies Magnum and Anzenberger for Chinese markets.

- Digital Railroad has expanded its service for photographers by adding business tools powered by ADBASE Inc. and HindSight Ltd.

Send suggestions for stock photo news to news editor Daryl Lang (dlang@pdnonline.com).