MISCmedia for 4/25/00
Picture Deals

WHILE FEW AROUND HERE WERE LOOKING, Seattle has become the unquestioned world capital of photography--at least from the "intellectual property" angle.

Two local outfits, Getty Images and Bill Gates's Corbis, have busily bought up lots of the world's big and medium-sized stock image collections, and have signed exclusive contracts with many of the top agencies that represent individual freelance photographers.

At the present rate of consolidation, it won't be long before these firms become the places where publishers, ad agencies, news organizations, commercial websites, etc. will have to go to get ready-made and/or historic still images. The Big Two have become so powerful, they've been able to push quite favorable contract terms on the agencies. In turn, the agencies are pushing strict work-for-hire terms on their member photographers, depriving them of any rights to their own work in any form forever.

Some of the awful details are in a recent letter to the MacInTouch site (from the linked page, scroll down to the April 12 archive).

This sort of mercenary behavior represents the more threatening, better-publicized side of the current media-biz churn: ever-fewer big players, force-feeding their "synergies" all the way up and down their respective supply chains to the benefit of only the few at the top.

It's the exact opposite of the "disintermediation" (elimination of middlemen) the Net's supposed to be bringing to business and other human endeavors, according to an article in the current Harper's (more about that tomorrow).

Call it "ultramediation" maybe, control of whole industries by a few middlemen. Major record labels and movie studios are more intermediators than anything else these days--other entities often make the works; but the media giants stay in control by ruling the distribution.

(Gates, of course, is the king of the ultramediators. He took the operating system (a piece of low-level software that originally ran a computer's most rudimentary functions and translated instructions from application software to the hardware) and made it, and himself, the near-absolute rulers of the cyber-universe.)

But there's another way the Net could help counter this trend. I've written about it often: Using these tools to help get individual photogs, say, together with individual clients via "business to business" (sorry to use such a CNBC-popular buzzword) catalog sites, auction sites, and clearinghouses.

Clients (at least the ones I've known) are too deadline-stressed to look carefully at every individual would-be contributor's portfolio; one reason the stock-photo companies Getty and Corbis are now eating had gotten so popular. But a site where individual photogs and illustrators could pool their offerings in a well-organized display would offer clients most everything the Big Two can offer, while keeping the photogs in control of their own copyrights.

I'm too busy these days to start such a site myself. But if you start one, or know of someone who already has, lemme know.

TOMORROW: Harper's visits the Dreaded Eugene Anarchists and worries about the cyber-snobs.

ELSEWHERE:

• Finding animal shapes in the clouds without actually having to go outside....
• The town of Port ("don't call it Pete") Townsend may be an aging-hippie fantasyland that doesn't have a decent fast-food joint, but at least it's now got the Museum of Northwest Art....

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Strange stuff in the Seattle Times.
• The continuing story of CNBC.
• James Twitchell-- one English prof who (hearts) marketing.
• The real reasons conservatives love baseball.
• USA Today turns 18, tries to start looking more mature.
• Back when downtown retail welcomed non-millionaire shoppers.
• Jim Hightower's selective memories of the pre-Clinton Democrats.
• Announcing the launch of MISCmedia Radio.
• Corporate warriors try to capture even more intellectual property.
• Parts one and two of a poet's fascination with the business press.
• Dave Eggers--Staggering Genius or just another hip-ironic bad boy?
• A drink to fair trade.
• Parts one and two of the clash between the arts scene and the info biz, and how it can be resolved.
• The potential savior of daily newsprint.
• You bet we've got demographics!

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• 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1986-94 columns
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