Corbis Expands Royalty-Free Offer . . .

Stock Asylum Staff Report
July 12, 2005

Corbis has announced several moves to beef up its royalty-free stock photography offer, including the launch of rfShop, a new web site within the larger Corbis domain.

The new web offering consolidates the entire Corbis royalty-free collection and the collections of several partner suppliers in one place. It includes 200,000 images and offers a three-click checkout, the company said.

In related moves, Corbis said it has signed JupiterImages as an additional royalty-free partner and has acquired image100, a royalty-free production business based in London.

In making the moves, Corbis Senior Vice President Jennifer Hurshell said royalty-free continues to be popular for graphic design, advertising and publishing projects that demand flexible usage rights.

The addition of JupiterImages to the Corbis image partner family is especially interesting since it forms an alliance between two of the world's largest image providers. Through acquisitions, JupiterImages recently emerged as the third largest supplier of stock imagery after Getty Images and Corbis.

JupiterImages has been one of the most active participants in the most recent round of stock industry consolidations, having recently announced purchases of PictureArts and Creatas, among others.

As if it were trying to draw a line in the sand, Getty Images, the world's largest stock photo supplier, has said it will drop some of the JupiterImages brands from the Getty Images partner program, which lets smaller suppliers sell image licenses through the Getty web site.

In addition to the Thinkstock and Comstock collections, which are both brands of JupiterImages, the rfShop will offer imagery from, Goodshoot, DEX, Brand X and others. Brand X is owned by PictureArts. PictureArts is currently being acquired by Jupitermedia, the parent company of JupiterImages ( for more information about this acquisition, click here ).

The company also said image100 co-founder and CEO Russell Glenister will join Corbis as vice president of creative content production.

 

 

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

The rfShop is at: http://www.corbis.com/rf

JupiterImages is at: http://www.jupiterimages.com

GettyImages is at: http://www.gettyimages.com