Corbis
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| Corbis | |
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| Type | Private |
| Founded | Seattle, Washington, USA (1989) |
| Headquarters |  Seattle, Washington, USA |
| Key people | Bill Gates, Founder Gary Shenk, CEO, Adam Brotman, Senior Vice President www.corbis.com |
| Industry | Digital image licensing, rights services, artist representation and media management |
Corbis Corporation is a buyer/seller of high-quality photography and film footage and related rights, based in Seattle, Washington. It has a collection of more than 100 million creative, entertainment and historic images, a comprehensive footage library, extensive rights and clearances expertise, and a roster of elite assignment photographers.
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.
Bill Gates stores his Corbis photographic collection 220 feet underground in a refrigerated cave in the Iron Mountain storage facility.[2]
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[edit] Size and finances
Corbis sells to customers in more than 50 countries. As of 2007, the company had 1,100 employees in 24 offices in 16 countries. Its revenue increased 11 percent to $251 million in 2006, compared to 2005. Since its founding in 1989, the company has never had a profitable year.[3]
[edit] Lines of business
[edit] Image licensing and search
The company says it has the world’s broadest, deepest and most easily accessible and searchable collection of imagery in the world. The collection includes contemporary creative, entertainment, iconic and historic photography as well as art and illustrations. Among its noted acquisitions were 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: Cutting-edge contemporary creative imagery from the zefa, etsa, Thunderdog Collective, Corbis’s wholly-owned collections and others.
- Personalities: Inspired formal celebrity portraiture and lifestyle imagery, celebrity candids and red-carpet photos from the Outline, Outline@Home, OutlineLive and Corbis Entertainment collections.
- Iconic and historic: 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.
[edit] Rights services
Corbis has a number of specialists who handle licensing of content, clearances and rights representation. The specialists have relationships with important third-party rights holders—including major studios, record companies, celebrities, and publishers, and help clients license almost any content, handling all clearances for use. Corbis’s expertise includes sourcing content and negotiating third-party clearances for celebrities or their estates; feature films and TV clips; athletes and sports leagues; copyrights, trademarks, and logos; music and audio; and properties and landmarks.
Corbis also represents rights-holders directly, including the Andy Warhol Foundation and some of the world’s most-recognized personalities, from Hollywood legends such as Steve McQueen and Mae West to well-known innovators including the Wright Brothers and Albert Einstein.
[edit] Broadcasting
For television commercial advertising professionals, Corbis offers services for finding and licensing almost any content including music, TV, film clips and footage:
- 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.
[edit] Media management
Corbis offers hosted software to businesses to manage marketing content and digital media assets such as photography and logos. The software is used for business applications such as marketing extranets, brand portals and digital asset libraries. Customers include ABC-TV, Aflac, ASPCA, Birkenstock, Diageo, Discovery Communications, Exxon Mobil, Intergraph, Malibu-Kahlua International, Marriott International, Mattel, Pfizer, Starbucks, The St. Joe Company, Toyota, Universal Studios Hollywood, and World Wildlife Fund.
[edit] 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]
[edit] Veer
In November 2007, Corbis announced that they would be purchasing Veer and would continue to operate it as a separate brand. [6]
[edit] 2007 Layoffs
On June 30, 2007. Corbis announced that it will be laying off 160 employees, 15% percent of its current workforce. It was also announced that they will be planning on selling off their digital asset management and photography assignment groups.[7]
Continuing with the 2007 lay-offs. On the 15 November 2007 a further reduction of Corbis staff overall worldwide workforce by about 125 positions. Also plan to phase out their brick-and-mortar offices in Amsterdam, Brussels, Chicago, Hamburg, Madrid, Melbourne, Montreal and Singapore over the next six months, and instead deploy in-the-field business.
[edit] Collections
- United Press International archive [8]
- Bettmann Archive (1995)[1]
- Sygma [1]
- Zefa[1]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e Hafner, Katie. "A Photo Trove, a Mounting Challenge.", New York Times, April 10, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-04-12.
- ^ "Under Iron Mountain", National Press Photographers' Association, June 4, 2005
- ^ a b 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
- ^ Daryl Lang, "Corbis Lays Off 160, Abandons Assignment Division" Photo District News, June 28, 2007
- ^ a b Pacific & Atlantic. Library of Congress. Retrieved on 2008-04-12. “Pacific & Atlantic was subsumed by United Press International, which has been bought by Corbis. The use of photographs taken by Pacific & Atlantic may be restricted.”
