Corbis Buys Beateworks . . .

Stock Asylum Staff Report
March 14, 2006

Corbis claims to now have the "leading interior image and home collection" in the stock photography industry as a result of its acquisition of Beateworks on this date.

"This acquisition will advance Corbis' strategy to aggressively grow its royalty-free and rights-managed lines of business in categories that matter most to commercial clients," the company said in a press release. Financial details were not disclosed.

Corbis said it will integrate the Los Angeles-based collection into its current online image library. The company added that Beateworks, which has a division that creates stories about the homes of celebrities, should benefit from the Corbis rights clearance service. The service helps image users obtain permission to publish photos and other visuals when publicity and other rights are an issue.

"I'm probably one of the happiest women in the world today," said Beateworks President and Founder Beate Chelette. "I feel very accomplished. I feel like I've proven what I thought was right all along."

"And," she added, "They will be making a lot of money with this."

Chelette started her career in photography as a 16-year-old intern in a photo lab. She was hired as photo editor at Elle Magazine in Germany when she was just 22 years old, making her the youngest photo editor in the magazine's history. In 1989 she moved to the United States where she represented a number of professional photographers, including some who specialized in architecture.

"We had a lot of people call for (architectural) images and we just kept selling and selling and selling them," Chelette noted. She said that starting the Beateworks collection in 1993 seemed like a natural next step.

"It was the right idea at the right time at the right place." Chelette said. "Nobody seemed to have done it before me."

Chelette said she will continue to work with the collection as it transitions to Corbis.

"They really want to understand this part of the business," she said. "They really like the entire home segment and how it fits in with the various divisions at Corbis."

Chelette said she liked the idea of moving the collection to Corbis because the larger company has the resources to better market it.

They will be doing pretty much the same thing that we have been doing, but on a larger scale with a much larger support network and a much larger push behind it," Chelette said.

Besides Beateworks' rights-managed library of interior and architectural images, the company offers two brands -- Beateworks@home, which provides feature stories about celebrity homes, and InsideOutPix, a royalty-free lifestyle collection centered on the home.

The company claims clients like Merrill Lynch, Home Depot, Coldwell Banker, Glidden Paint, True Value Hardware and Architectural Digest.

"The trend toward living well has helped us tremendously," Chelette noted on the company's web site. "Only within the last few years has this segment virtually exploded and we were one of the first to recognize this trend, putting us in front of the market."

 

Corbis can be found at: http://www.corbis.com

Beateworks is at: http://www.beateworks.com