Stock photography online - stock photography services
- The Electronic Magazine.

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Dec 1, 1993 by Debby Patz

Art directors often dream of sitting at their computers and tapping into the perfect image. Now, new stock photography online services are promising to let them do just that.

To boost its presence in the digital market, Eastman Kodak last month launched Kodak Picture Exchange (KPX), which lets users browse through images from 14 stock agencies right on their Macs. "|KPX is~ going to change the way people search for and select images," says Roger Hansen, the Exchange's marketing manager.

Beyond a $399 membership fee, which covers software, a modem cable and five user IDs, Kodak charges $1.42 per minute on the system and $9 to download design proofs. Thumbnails are free.

Competing with Kodak in this market is Arlington, Virginia-based Picture Network International (PNI). Its "Seymour" stock photography online resource is slated for spring 1994. As with KPX, Seymour users search multiple agencies. Unlike KPX, licensing and ordering are also done electronically, notes Jeff Weiss, PNI's executive VP.

Window-shopping for images via computer offers numerous advantages. One of the biggest, says Weiss, is do-it-yourself research. "You can directly access large archives and do the visual brain-storming," he says of the Tribune Media Services-backed program, which currently comprises five agencies.

It may be too early to tell how KPX and PNI will fare, but magazine publishers are clearly interested in the concept. In the past six months Time, Sports Illustrated and Business Week have joined PressLink (PL), a Cleveland-based subsidiary of newspaper giant Knight-Ridder, which delivers online, high-resolution images to Macs and PCs from various sources, including the Bettmann Archive. "When we're looking for general news photos, PressLink is one of the first places we look," says Business Week associate picture editor Todd James. Still, James says he sees two big problems with image databases: the lack of a standard cataloging language and the limited number of photos available. "A good database is definitely better than a bad researcher," he says. "But a great researcher may be better than any database."

Indeed, early reactions to KPX are mixed. Lorraine Engelhardt, manager of computer imaging at New York's DMB&B advertising, questions its cost-effectiveness. "I'm gun-shy of KPX's $9 charge" to download a design proof. "People have a tendency to download the last image they see instead of the thumbnails."

And Mel Cowher, director of graphic arts for book publisher HarperCollins' college division and a KPX beta-tester, has similar reservations: "The online cost is high, and I think you could probably burn up those funds pretty quickly."

Also of concern are ownership, licensing, and contract and copyright issues, says Leonora Goldberg, executive director at the New York chapter of the American Society for Media Photographers. "People are not only wondering how |these issues~ will work, but even what questions to ask." ASMP and the Media Photographers Copyright Agency are trying to provide some answers by setting guidelines to help direct photographers and electronic imagers into this digital photo frontier.

Stock agencies, too, are concerned about potential copyright infringements. "I feel tremendously responsible for educating new users about what the laws are," says Barbara Roberts, president of New York City-based FPG International.

Clearly, online stock is in its infancy, and both agencies and users have a lot to learn. Says Roberts echoing a common sentiment, "I strongly believe that traditional delivery will be predominant for the next three to five years."

COPYRIGHT 1993 Copyright by Media Central Inc., A PRIMEDIA Company. All rights reserved.
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