BENlabs
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| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Digital image licensing and rights services |
| Founded | Seattle, Washington, USA (1989) |
| Headquarters |  Seattle, Washington, USA |
Key people |
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Corbis Corporation is an American company, based in Seattle, Washington, that sells the rights to photographs and other still images. It has a collection of more than 100 million images.
Corbis is privately owned by Bill Gates, who founded the company in 1989 under the name Interactive Home Systems (a name currently held by an unrelated, slightly older company based in Concord, Massachusetts). One major reason for starting the company was Gates's belief that people would someday decorate their homes with a revolving display of digital artwork using digital frames.[1] The company's name was changed to Continuum Productions in 1994 and to Corbis Corporation a year later. "Corbis" is Latin for "wicker basket", which at the time referred to the company's emerging view of itself as a receptacle or storehouse for visual media. Its Bettmann Archive (acquired in 1995) is stored 220 feet underground in a refrigerated cave in the Iron Mountain storage facility.[2]
Lines of business
Image licensing and search
The company's collection includes contemporary creative, entertainment, and historical photography as well as art and illustrations. Among its acquisitions are the 11 million piece Bettmann Archive, acquired in 1995; the Sygma collection in France (1999); and the German stock image company Zefa (2005). Corbis also has the rights to digital reproduction for art from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the National Gallery in London.[1] Corbis adds hundreds of thousands of new images every year.
Corbis's collections include:
- Contemporary creative imagery from the zefa, etsa, Thunderdog Collective, Corbis's wholly-owned collections and others.
- Celebrity photos from the Outline, Outline@Home, OutlineLive, Lynn Goldsmith and Corbis Entertainment collections.
- Historical imagery from photojournalists, museums, and cultural institutions including Andy Warhol Foundation, Ansel Adams, Douglas Kirkland, James White, The Smithsonian Institution, The National Gallery, London, The State Hermitage Museum, Christie's Images, Playboy, and the Bettmann, Hulton-Deutsch, Sygma and Brett Weston collections.
Rights services
Corbis rebranded its Rights Services Division as "GreenLight" in 2008.[citation needed] That division handles licensing of content, clearances, rights representation and talent negotiations. GreenLight also represents rights-holders directly, including the personality rights of Bruce Lee; Johnny Cash and June Carter; the Andy Warhol Foundation; Steve McQueen; Mae West; the Wright brothers; and Albert Einstein.
Broadcasting
For television commercial advertising professionals, Corbis and GreenLight offers services for finding and licensing almost any content including music, TV, film clips and footage:
- GreenLight's Rights and music clearances: Securing third-party rights to celebrity talent, music, TV and film clips, trademarks, footage, etc.
- Assisting broadcast producers to find the shots for their advertising campaigns by searching Corbis' more than 25,000 film clips and hundreds of partner footage libraries worldwide, including nearly any television, movie and news collections.
- Licensing Corbis imagery for use in broadcast commercials and movies.
Media management
In July 2008 Corbis sold eMotion LLC, its media management division, to Open Text Corporation.
Microstock
In early June 2007, Gary Shenk, Corbis's president and, as of July 1, 2007, its chief executive, announced that the company was creating a microstock website. The company said it intended to use its microstock site as a farm club to find photographers who could also sell their photographs on the main Corbis Web site.[3] In late June, the company launched SnapVillage, with about 10,000 images initially viewable.[4] Startup work was led by Adam Brotman, senior vice president of networks for Corbis. SnapVillage offers two pricing models: Per-image pricing like Getty Image's iStockphoto, or subscriptions like those offered by Shutterstock.[5] SnapVillage was closed due to low sales in early 2009 and rolled into Veer.
Veer
In November 2007, Corbis announced that they would be purchasing Veer and would continue to operate it as a separate brand.[6]
Layoffs
2007
On June 30, 2007, Corbis announced it would lay off 160 employees, 15% percent of its workforce, and that it was planning to sell its digital asset management and photography assignment groups.[7]
On November 15, 2007, Corbis further reduced its worldwide workforce by about 125 positions.[citation needed] That plan included phasing out its offices in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Brussels, Belgium; Chicago, Illinois; Hamburg, Germany; Madrid, Spain; Melbourne, Montreal, Canada; and Singapore,
2008
An announcement during the week of 9/11/2008 continued a pattern of layoffs and restructurings at the unprofitable company. Corbis eliminated about 175 jobs in 2008.[citation needed]
2009
80 people were laid off on October 20, 2009 in Europe.[citation needed]
68 people were laid off on June 24, 2009 in North America.[citation needed]
5 news photo editors were laid off in New York, Los Angeles, and London on January 20, 2009[citation needed] which was Inauguration Day in the United States.
Notes
- ^ a b Katie Hafner (April 10, 2007). "A Photo Trove, a Mounting Challenge". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-04-12.
In all, Corbis represents or owns the rights to more than 100 million images, including some of the most famous photographs ever — Arthur Sasse's photo of Einstein sticking his tongue out and Marilyn Monroe on the subway grate. And Corbis handles the licensing of millions of other images on behalf of thousands of photographers.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) Cite error: The named reference "NYT041007" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). - ^ "Under Iron Mountain", National Press Photographers' Association, June 4, 2005
- ^ Stephen Shankland, "Corbis to take 'microstock' plunge", CNET News.com, June 1, 2007, accessed June 13, 2007.
- ^ Kamau High, "Corbis Launches SnapVillage", AdWeek, June 26, 2007
- ^ Daryl Lang, "Enter Corbis: SnapVillage Microstock Site Is Launched", Photo District News, June 25, 2007
- ^ Corbis Acquires Veer, Plans To Keep Brands Separate
- ^ Lang, Daryl, "Corbis Lays Off 160, Abandons Assignment Division" Photo District News, June 28, 2007
References
- Dear Bill Gates, Dir. Sarah J. Christman, USA, 2006.