Getty Images announces closure of citizen-journalism agency Scoopt
Two years after buying the photo licensing agency Scoopt, Getty Images has announced it will close the UK-based company and meld a select portion of Scoopt’s images with Getty’s as the company focuses on “core products in news, sports and entertainment.”
Scoopt was founded in July 2005 by Scottish tech writer Kyle McRae and his wife Jill. The company aimed to organize the ever-growing global stream of uber-timely news photos taken by passers-by–who often wield only small point-and-shoot or cell phone cameras–and then sell the images and pay the photographers like professionals.
It was free for Scoopt members to join the agency and to upload photos. Upon submitting images, they agreed to grant Scoopt 12-months of exclusive licensing rights, followed by a permanent, non-exclusive license for editorial sale. Photographers were paid 40 percent of the sale amount.
In an e-mail sent to its members, Scoopt announced it would stop accepting new images and would close down galleries on Feb. 6, and that a holding page would remain in place until March 6. The rights for most photos will return to the copyright holders and those photographers whose images are chosen for inclusion in Getty’s collection will be contacted directly, according to the e-mail (below), which was re-posted this morning on this stock photography blog.
Scoopt launched amid an environment of increasing interest in the potential for commercializing public journalism: You Witness News, a joint Yahoo and Reuters citizen-journalism venture, was launched in 2006, as was CNN’s public journalism project, iReport.
McRae sold Scoopt, which he billed as the first agency to sell photos on behalf of citizen journalists, to Getty in March 2007 in order to see it grow. But, according to McRae’s personal Web site, he stayed with the company for just one year after the sale.
McRae had previously tried to set up a partnership to allow Scoopt to tap the massive collection stored by the online photo sharing site Flickr, according to this 2006 article. When his efforts were rebuffed, he instead issued an open letter to Flickr members inviting them to tag certain photos with the word ‘Scoopt’ in order to indicate those they would allow the company to license.
Just before announcing Scoopt’s closure, Getty launched an “invitation-only” partnership with Flickr in which Getty asks certain Flickr users to share photos in a special collection available for royalty-free sale.
Here’s the text of Scoopt’s e-mail announcement:
Dear Scoopt members,
I am sorry to inform you, as a member of Scoopt, that we have decided to close the business. We will not be taking in any more imagery after February 6, 2009 and will close the upload application. We will also cease licensing any imagery through Scoopt on that date.
Our experience with Scoopt has taught us some very valuable lessons We remain convinced that there is a demand for this kind of material as part of an editorial product, but for the moment are choosing to focus our energies within Getty Images on our core products in news, sport and entertainment.
It has been a pleasure working with Scoopt, your pictures have provided a fascinating snapshot of the circumstances in which you find yourselves and have added valuable viewpoints to the news service we provide our customers on a daily basis.
A holding page will remain until March 6, 2009 but from February 6 we will not be accepting any new imagery and so the upload path will be closed, and the galleries shut down, at which point all rights over the photos revert to you, the copyright holders.
All Scoopt content that also appears on Getty Images will initially be reviewed and any Scoopt member that has photos deemed to have longer term value on Getty Images will be offered a separate contract To be clear, on February 6, 2009 all Scoopt content will be taken down from the Getty Images website and only be reposted, once the relevant contractual relationship with individual photographers is in place.
If your material is selected for continued inclusion on Getty Images, you will be contacted directly. We will be posting some FAQ’s on the website to try to answer any questions you may have, so please do refer to this section.
Please note that we will be retaining your contact details in order to service any outstanding payments that are due and in case there should be need for a further communication update. If you would like your details removed from the database, please respond to enquiries@scoopt.com with the words Remove Details in the subject line, and citing your Scoopt member ID.
Please use the email enquiries@scoopt.com for all correspondence regarding the closure of Scoopt
Thank you for all your enthusiasm and support which have made Scoopt such an exciting place to work.
From the team at Scoopt
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