Corbis

Corbis Corporation
Private
Industry Digital licensing
Rights services
Founded 1989 (1989)
Headquarters Seattle, Washington, United States
Owner Bill Gates[1]
Slogan Start Here
Website www.corbisimages.com

Corbis is a Seattle, Washington-based licensing agency. Founded by Bill Gates in 1989 as Interactive Home Systems, with a goal to serve as a distributor of artwork for the prospective concept of digital art frames in homes, the company, later renamed Corbis, focused more intensely on the acquisition and preservation of historic images, and a general photo and footage licensing business. The company also expanded into the entertainment advertising market, as well as providing rights clearance and personality rights management services.

In January 2016, Corbis announced that it would sell its image licensing businesses to an affiliate of Visual China Group. VCG will, in turn, license the images to Getty Images outside of China.

Lines of business

Image licensing and search

The company's collection includes contemporary creative, editorial, entertainment, and historical photography as well as art and illustrations. Among its acquisitions are the 11 million piece Bettmann Archive, acquired in 1995; the Sygma collection in France (1999); and the German stock image company ZEFA (2005). Corbis also has the rights to digital reproduction for art from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the National Gallery in London.[2]

Corbis Entertainment

The Corbis Entertainment division encompasses services to the entertainment industry, including the product placement agency Branded Entertainment Network, the celebrity photo agency Splash,[3] as well as GreenLight, an online service that assists users in licensing images, music, video, and personality rights for commercial use.[4] It also directly represents the personality rights of various figures, including Albert Einstein, Andy Warhol, Bruce Lee, Johnny and June Carter Cash, Martin Luther King, Jr. Marvin Gaye, Muhammad Ali, Steve McQueen, and Thomas Edison among others.[5][6][7]

History

Founding

Corbis is privately owned by Bill Gates, who founded the company in 1989 under the name Interactive Home Systems. Interactive Home Systems presented itself as an art licensing company; Gates envisioned a system in which users would decorate their homes with revolving displays of artwork, including works by notable painters, using digital frames and technology that had yet to have been developed.[8] The company's name was changed to Continuum Productions in 1992 and later, to Corbis Corporation.[9] Interactive television was suggested as a way to deliver the content, but as the development of the planned product was under way, Corbis focused on digitizing content and acquiring rights to images. Corbis signed agreements with the National Gallery of London, the Library of Congress, the Sakamoto Archive, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.[9]

In October 1995, the company purchased the Bettmann Archive collection, which included the pre-1983 photo library of United Press International and its predecessor photo agencies, Acme and INP, the photo arm of the International News Service. Prior to acquiring the Bettmann Archive, Corbis represented roughly 500,000 images, a total that increased exponentially when the Bettmann drawings, artworks, news photographs, and other illustrations were added to the company's portfolio. In all the Bettmann Archive contained 16 million images.[10] The archive was stored 220 feet underground in a refrigerated cave in the Iron Mountain storage facility,[11]

In 1995 the company won a contract with its first major photographer, Roger Ressmeyer, followed by several more, including Galen Rowell; this signalled growing interest in the world of professional photography, which up to that point had not taken the company seriously.[9] In 1996 the company acquired the exclusive rights to approximately 40,000 images photographed by wilderness photographer Ansel Adams.[12]

In 1997, Corbis named company veterans, Steve Davis and Tony Rojas, co-CEOs. Corbis also hired David Rheins to run Corbis' Productions, and Leslie Hughes to lead the company's B2B image licensing division, Corbis Images.[13] These hires marked the company's shift to a more market focused entity. Corbis Productions published several award-winning CD-ROM titles such as A Passion for Art: Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, and Dr. Barnes, compiled from the Barnes Foundation collection, and Leonardo da Vinci, which showcased the Codex Leicester.[14]

In 1998, Leslie Hughes was named President of Corbis Images. The company expanded internationally and through product development and further acquisitions. The company acquired Digital Stock Corp., a supplier of royalty-free images to further expand its offering.[15] In 1998, another division was added to Corbis Images when the company acquired Outline Press Syndicate, Inc., a supplier of celebrity portrait photography. Renamed Corbis Outline, the company syndicated studio portraits and candid photographs of actors, musicians, athletes, politicians, business leaders, scientists, and other celebrities and provided the images for sale to a broad range of national magazines.[16]

In June 1999, the company acquired the French news photo agency Sygma, adding 40 million additional images to the company's collection, and expanding Corbis's portfolio beyond 65 million images. The archive is today stored in a preservation and access facility outside Paris.[17]

2000–2010

Corbis's business-to-business image licensing business expanded with the growth of the Internet in the early part of the decade. The company also expanded geographically, making multiple acquisitions such as the Stock Market[18] and expanding into the footage licensing market with the acquisition of Sekani.

2011–2013

2016: Sale of image licensing business

On January 22, 2016, Corbis announced that it had sold its image licensing business, including the Corbis Images, Corbis Motion and Veer libraries and their associated assets, to Unity Glory, an affiliate of Visual China Group. The sale does not include the Corbis Entertainment business, which will remain owned by the company under a new name. Concurrently, it was announced that VCG would exclusively license international distribution (outside of China) of the Corbis images library to its rival, Getty Images. VCG has historically served as the exclusive distributor of Getty content in China.[5] Distribution of Corbis content will be transitioned to Getty's outlets, while the company will also manage Corbis's physical archives on behalf of VCG. Of the deal, Getty CEO Jonathan Klein remarked that after 21 years in business, it was "lovely to get the milk, the cream, cheese, yogurt and the meat without buying the cow."[6][42]

References

  1. 1 2 Lohr, Steve (18 Jul 2010). "In a Partnership of Unequals, a Start-Up Suffers". New York Times. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  2. ↑ Katie Hafner, A Photo Trove, a Mounting Challenge, The New York Times, April 10, 2007.
  3. 1 2 "Corbis buys L.A. firm that specializes in celebrity photos". Seattle Times. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  4. ↑ "Corbis Simplifies Music Licensing With GreenLight Launch". Billboard. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  5. 1 2 "Bill Gates’ Corbis Images Sold to Visual China Group". Variety. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  6. 1 2 "Corbis sale to Chinese company may be boon to Getty". Seattle Times. 22 January 2016. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  7. ↑ "GreenLight Adds Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash To Rights Roster". Billboard. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  8. 1 2 Hafner, Katie (10 April 2007). "A Photo Trove, a Mounting Challenge". New York Times. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  9. 1 2 3 Richard Rapaport for Wired UK. Issue 2.11 - November 1996 In His Image
  10. ↑ Jesse Birnbaum; David Bjerklie; Patrick E. Cole (23 Oct 1995). "HISTORY: GATES SNAPS TOP PIX". Time. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  11. ↑ Haynes, Gary. "UNDER IRON MOUNTAIN Corbis Stores "Very Important Photographs" At Zero Degrees Fahrenheit" (PDF). National Press Photographer's Association. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  12. ↑ Lohr, Steve (2 Apr 1996). "Gates Acquires Rights To Adams Photo Images". New York Times. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  13. ↑ "Industry leaders join Corbis to meet growing demand for visual content". BNET. 1997. Retrieved 2014-06-15.
  14. ↑ Teather, David (8 Feb 2005). "The software billionaire's $170m sideline". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  15. ↑ "Gates' Corbis Archive Acquires Digital Stock". The Seattle Times. 3 February 1998.
  16. ↑ "Outline Press Joins Corbis; Premier Celebrity Image Provider Joins Forces With Market Leader Corbis to Create World's Most Extensive Celebrity Portrait Business". Business Wire. 14 Jul 1998. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  17. ↑ Balean, John (15 May 2009). "PAN Special Report: The Sygma Preservation and Access Facility". PhotoArchiveNews.com. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  18. ↑ "Corbis Acquires The Stock Market Photo Agency". 22 Mar 2000. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  19. ↑ "Hughes to Lead Newly Consolidated Markets and Products Group".
  20. ↑ "Corbis Opens New Film Preservation Center that Rescues and Preserves Access to America's Most Famous Images" (PDF).
  21. ↑ "Corbis Acquires Zefa, Third-Largest Image Licensing Company in the World". 4 Jan 2005. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  22. ↑ Ferrone, Chris (3 Oct 2006). "Corbis acquires Australian Picture Library". Archived from the original on January 4, 2011. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  23. ↑ "Corbis Announces New Leadership Team". Archived from the original on December 2, 2005.
  24. ↑ "Corbis Acquires Veer". Archived from the original on September 29, 2011.
  25. ↑ "Corbis Rebrands as "GreenLight" and signs Steve McQueen licensing deals". License! Global. 24 Jun 2008. Archived from the original on July 24, 2011. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  26. ↑ "Corbis Opens Sygma Preservation And Access Facility". DesignTAXI. 18 May 2009. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  27. 1 2 Phelps, Brent (21 Jan 2009). "Corbis partners with Thought Equity Motion". Archived from the original on April 29, 2011. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  28. ↑ "Veer's New Website Equals Simpler Shopping, More Affordable Images & Fonts". 14 Jul 2010. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  29. ↑ Buley, Taylor (19 Jul 2010). "Start-Up Goes Public On Corbis Fraud, Starring Bill Gates". Forbes.com. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  30. ↑ Ferrone, Chris, ""Corbis reports on 2005 Financial Performance", About the Image, March 2006 Archived May 26, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
  31. ↑ Ando, Ritsuko, ""Corbis on Verge of Profitablity", Reuters Media Summit, November, 2007
  32. ↑ "Corbis and Costco - See paragraph 4 about profitability", Weiss, Debra, December, 2010
  33. ↑ David Walker, " PDN, Jan 2011
  34. ↑ Walker, David. "Celebrity Smackdown: Walking the Red Carpet Is Consent, Judge Says". PDN. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  35. ↑ La Lettre " La Lettre, July 2011
  36. ↑ Aug 23, 2011 - 6:00PM (2011-08-23). "The AP And Corbis Combine Image Libraries In Distribution Deal — paidContent". Paidcontent.org. Archived from the original on November 24, 2011. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
  37. ↑ New York Times "* January 2012 : New York Times, January 2012
  38. ↑ John Cook, Bill Gates-owned Corbis faces $12.75M in damages in fraud case, GeekWire, May 16, 2012.
  39. ↑ Natalie Apostolou, Gates' Corbis busted again for fraud, The Register, May 16, 2012.
  40. ↑ http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/corbis-acquires-demotix-1725922.htm
  41. ↑ Appellate Court Ruling, Jan 2013.
  42. ↑ "The Decade-Long Image Licensing War Is Suddenly Over". Time. Retrieved 26 January 2016.

Further reading

External links

Coordinates: 47°36′12″N 122°20′00″W / 47.603365°N 122.333354°W / 47.603365; -122.333354

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