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Bill Gates sells image licensing company Corbis to Visual Group China

by 4 Comments

Corbis_VCG

Seattle-based Corbis Corporation has announced that its massive collection of over 100 million images and 800,000 video clips has been sold to Visual China Group, a Chinese investment company whose majority owner is Getty Images.

Corbis, originally founded by Bill Gates in 1990, announced this morning that all still and motion picture archives, along with all names and branding trademarks, would be sold to Visual China Group for an undisclosed sum.

In the press release, Visual China Group CEO Amy Jun Liang writes:

Corbis is a world-leading and widely esteemed brand in the image industry, and we are thrilled to add this treasure-house of valuable image assets to our premium brand portfolios […] The transaction strengthens our dominant position in China’s image industry, enhances our core competence in the global high-end image market, and marks a significant milestone on our journey of globalization.

Over the course of the next few months, all 100 million images and 800,000 video clips will be transferred over to Getty Images.

Once this transition is complete, Gett Images will become the exclusive global distributor of Corbis content outside of China, adding to Getty’s already impressive archive of 200 million images.

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  • Not good news, because this means Corbis is now owned by Getty Images.

    • Kay O. Sweaver

      Soon we will all be subsidiaries of one, giant, global company.

  • STL Photographer

    This is just another nail in the coffin, not only for stock photographers, but also independent photojournalists. Corbis owned Demotix which was an outlet for photojournalists to get their images published by mainstream media. As of today Demotix is gone, the site redirects to Corbis.

    There are issues that may or may not be settled. Demotix owes photographers for photos that were sold and they weren’t paid for and since Corbis owns Demotix, Corbis would add photos from Demotix into the Corbis catalog. Demotix photographers never had a separate access to Corbis or direct agreement with them which means there are thousands of photos in the Corbis catalog that may be sold without payment to the photographer.

  • Nicolas Det

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/1548601348785140/

    We created a group to try to gather us.

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