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| Formerly | iStockphoto (until 2013) |
|---|---|
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Genre | Microstock photography |
| Founded | May 14, 2000 (as iStockphoto) |
| Founder | Bruce Livingstone |
| Headquarters | , |
| Parent | Getty Images |
| Website | www |
iStock is an online royalty free, international micro stock photography provider based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
The company was founded by Bruce Livingstone in May 2000, as iStockphoto, a free stock imagery website supported by Livingstone's web development firm, Evolvs Media. iStock pioneered the crowd-sourced stock industry and became the original source for user-generated stock photos, vectors and illustrations, and video clips. It began charging money in 2001 and quickly became profitable. [1]
On February 9, 2006, the firm was acquired by Getty Images for $50 million USD. Livingstone promised that the site would continue "functioning independently with the benefits of Getty Images, yet, very importantly for them and us, autonomy." [2]
On September 18, 2006, the site experienced the first benefits of the new ownership: [3] a Controlled vocabulary keyword taxonomy borrowed from Getty Images.
As of March 31,2007, [update] iStockpro closed. iStockpro was a more expensive version of iStockphoto that was never as popular as iStockphoto, and became redundant after the acquisition by Getty Images.
On April 1, 2008, Getty Images disclosed, as part of its agreement to be sold to a private equity firm, that iStockphoto's revenue in 2007 was $71.9 million USD of which $20.9 million (29%) was paid to contributors. [4] [5]
Founder and CEO Livingstone left iStockphoto in 2009. [6] He went on to co-found competitor Stocksy United in 2013. [7]
In 2013, iStockphoto was rebranded as iStock by Getty Images, removing the word 'photo' to convey that the company offers stock media other than just photography, such as vector illustrations, audio, and video. [8]
In 2020, iStock began offering weekly complimentary stock photos from its exclusive Signature collection, as well as monthly free illustrations and video clips.
iStock works with over 300,000 contributors globally, thousands of which are exclusive and create content solely for the platform. Contributing photographers apply by uploading 3–6 sample images, illustrations, or videos to the Contributor by Getty Images app, which is available on App Store and Google Play. The content is reviewed and if successful, applicants are invited to become either a Getty Images or iStock contributor.
Contributors receive royalties each time their content is licensed. Royalty rates start at 15% for photos and 20% for illustrations and videos, with exclusive contributors earning between 25% and 45%.
In an address to its community entitled "2008: A Year in Review and a Look Ahead″, [9] the firm's CEO mentioned that the company was paying out 'almost' $1.1 million per week in royalty payments to contributors.
Each approved image is added to the searchable online database, where it can be found by purchasers. Content is also grouped by collections and searchable via filters such as age, ethnicity and visual dimensions. Files can be downloaded immediately, and used for personal, business or commercial purposes. iStock offers subscription plans to suit varying needs and budgets or offers the opportunity to purchase credit packs for any asset, from any collection.
The basic license agreement prohibits some uses, such as logo or trademarks or adult materials, etc. Print runs over 500,000 requires an extended license. Extended licenses are available for purchase to cover needs not met by the basic license agreement. [10]
Each license file comes with a $10,000 legal guarantee, protecting users against copyright infringement. It's also possible to purchase an additional Extended Legal Guarantee to increase coverage to $250,000. [11]
iStock offers two types of collections, Signature and Essential. The Signature collection offers high-quality visuals, exclusive to iStock and The Essential collection offers more affordable non-exclusive visuals.
Visuals are grouped by hand-curated sets for ease of search and can be edited using the iStock Editor tool.
The 2011 film The Roommate obtained photos from iStockPhoto for its promotional material. One of the photos used as its backdrop was the Christy Administration Building from Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas. The college administration voiced concern that permission to use the photograph of the building was not properly obtained and is investigating the legality of its use. [12] As of February 8,2011, [update] no lawsuits have been filed but discussions continue to take place. [13]
On July 31, 2006 iStockphoto announced the development of a new branch, iStockvideo, to sell stock video clips in a variety of formats from web-size, through NTSC and PAL up to HDV and HD sizes.
iStock currently offers over 8 million video clips.
The iStockalypse was founded in 2005, as an official multi-day iStock photography event offering premium training. [14] It is held several times a year for contributing artists and photographers. [15]
Since the first event in Las Vegas, iStock has visited Seattle, Boston, Ljubljana, Prague, Austin, Barcelona, Marseilles, Buenos Aires, Malta, Berlin, Calgary, Istanbul, Cannes, Tokyo, London, Milan, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles and Paris. In March 2015 the event was organized in Dubai to get authentic, local shots of the city and its people. [16]
iStock is part of the wider Getty Images Inc. Grants program and, as of 2020, has supported the photojournalism and photography communities, including emerging photographers, with over $1.7 million in financial grants.
In 2020, iStock awarded three grants of US$10,000, $7,000 and $3,000, to three young creatives as part of its latest Creative Bursary, "Definition Future". In the wake of COVID-19 and the countless challenges creatives continued to face, the bursary provided financial support and mentorship, offering the three emerging creatives the financial freedom to explore what complexities the future may hold through the lens of creative visual storytelling. [17]
In 2015, the film Unfinished Business, starring Vince Vaughn, used images from iStock as part of their PR campaign. Images of the actors were superimposed onto stock photos of office workers which were available for the public to download. The campaign generated significant social media and press attention.
A photographer is a person who uses a camera to make photographs.
Getty Images Holdings, Inc. is a visual media company and supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video, and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three markets—creative professionals, the media, and corporate.
BENlabs, formerly BEN Group Inc, is a Los Angeles–based product placement, influencer marketing and licensing company. The company offers AI-driven product placement, influencer marketing services, music partnerships, rights clearance, and personality rights management services for the entertainment industry.
Stock photography is the supply of photographs that are often licensed for specific uses. The stock photo industry, which began to gain hold in the 1920s, has established models including traditional macrostock photography, midstock photography, and microstock photography. Conventional stock agencies charge from several hundred to several thousand US dollars per image, while microstock photography may sell for around US$0.25 cents. Professional stock photographers traditionally place their images with one or more stock agencies on a contractual basis, while stock agencies may accept the high-quality photos of amateur photographers through online submission.
Clip art is a type of graphic art. Pieces are pre-made images used to illustrate any medium. Today, clip art is used extensively and comes in many forms, both electronic and printed. However, most clip art today is created, distributed, and used in a digital form. Since its inception, clip art has evolved to include a wide variety of content, file formats, illustration styles, and licensing restrictions. It is generally composed exclusively of illustrations, and does not include stock photography.
Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stock footage is called a "stock shot" or a "library shot". Stock footage may have appeared in previous productions but may also be outtakes or footage shot for previous productions and not used. Examples of stock footage that might be utilized are moving images of cities and landmarks, wildlife in their natural environments, and historical footage. Suppliers of stock footage may be either rights managed or royalty-free. Many websites offer direct downloads of clips in various formats.
stock.xchng was a website providing free-to use stock photography and illustrations, its name being a reduced version of "stock exchange". The site was launched in February 2001 by Peter Hamza, and allows users to contribute, share and download high-resolution photographs and illustrations free of charge. Contributors are encouraged to submit material to enhance their photography career through wider public exposure. In 2009, the site had over 2,500,000 registered users and more than 400,000 photos. Until 2009, it operated parallel to its sister site, Stockxpert.com, until the site's parent company, Jupiterimages, was purchased by Getty Images, and the site is now tied in with the iStock library of paid images.
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a common way for amateur and professional photographers to host high-resolution photos. It has changed ownership several times and has been owned by SmugMug since April 20, 2018.
Microstock photography, also known as micropayment photography, is a part of the stock photography industry. What defines a company as a microstock photography company is that they (1) source their images almost exclusively via the Internet, (2) do so from a wider range of photographers than the traditional stock agencies, and (3) sell their images at a very low rate for a royalty-free (RF) image.
Shutterstock, Inc. is an American provider of stock photography, stock footage, stock music, and editing tools; it is headquartered in New York. Founded in 2003 by programmer and photographer Jon Oringer, Shutterstock maintains a library of around 200 million royalty-free stock photos, vector graphics, and illustrations, with around 10 million video clips and music tracks available for licensing. Originally a subscription site only, Shutterstock expanded beyond subscriptions into a la carte pricing in 2008. It has been publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 2012.
Bruce Livingstone is a Canadian entrepreneur who founded Calgary-based iStockphoto, an online distributor of stock photography.
DreamsTime.com is an online royalty-free microstock provider based in Brentwood, Tennessee.
Yuri Arcurs, born Jacob Yuri Wackerhausen on July 27, 1979 is a Danish stock photographer and owner of PeopleImages.com. In 2007 he was the top ranked selling contributor at Shutterstock, Fotolia, Crestock and BigStockPhoto In 2008 Arcurs sold 650,000 images per year through 16 different microstock agencies
Stocksy United, also referred to as Stocksy or Stocksy United Photography, is a Victoria, British Columbia based platform cooperative that accepts and provides royalty-free stock photography and stock video. Stocksy uses a curated editing approach to select useful and authentic photos. The co-op differs from other stock photography firms by its stated focus on fair pay and creating sustainable careers for its members.
Alamy Limited is a British privately owned stock photography agency launched in September 1999. It is an online supplier of stock images, videos, and other image material. Their content comes from agencies and independent photographers, or are collected from news archives, museums, national collections, and public domain content copied from Wikimedia Commons. Its headquarters are in Milton Park, near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. It has a development and operations centre at Technopark in Trivandrum, Kerala, India, and a sales office in Brooklyn, New York, United States.
Depositphotos is a company operating a royalty-free content website with headquarters in New York, USA. It was founded by Dmitry Sergeev in November 2009 in Kyiv, Ukraine. The Depositphotos library has over 200 million files, including royalty-free stock photos, vector images, video clips, and editorial files. In 2012, the Depositphotos library exceeded 10 million files in less than four years and was considered one of the fastest-growing photobanks in the world.
Pond5 is a New York–based online marketplace for royalty-free media. The company licenses stock footage, stock music, stock photography, sound effects, Adobe After Effects templates, and 3D models. Pond5 claims to have the world's largest collection of stock footage, and that they host more than 38 million clips as of September 2023.
Can Stock Photo was a stock photography provider which licenses royalty-free images, photos, digital illustrations, picture clip art and footage files on behalf of photographers, illustrators, and videographers. Founded in 2004, it was one of the earliest microstock agencies. The Can Stock Photo will cease exist on October 1, 2023.
Featurepics was a royalty-free microstock photography digital content agency that has been actively working in the stock photography market since 2007 based in Fremont, California.
123RF, a branch of Inmagine Group, is a stock photos agency founded in 2005 which sells royalty-free images and stock photography. The company also has an expansive collection of vector graphics, icons, fonts, videos, and audio files.
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