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Posts Tagged ‘royalties’

Dreamstime increases royalties for stock photo contributors in response to COVID-19’s economic impact

09 Jun

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout have impacted everyone, including photographers. Many photographers have lost revenue due to canceled jobs, fewer events to photograph and potential clients, including commercial clients, not having the revenue to spend on photography. Stock photography website Dreamstime has launched multiple initiatives to help photographers and others impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including a newly announced increase in royalties.

As of June 1st, Dreamstime is rewarding contributing photographers with a 10% increase in the royalties value for all downloads, including those with exclusive or non-exclusive status. As Dreasmstime points out, this means that a download that previously would have awarded 50% royalties will now award the photographer 55%. Dreamstime itself has been impacted by the economic downturn resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak, so while they aim to offer the increased royalties for as long as possible, they are unable to make any guarantees about the eventual timeframe.

‘This means that financial aid will be now employed for a more community-centered strategy. For you, this means that all purchases beginning with June 1st will reward an extra 10% increase in the royalties value for all downloads, regardless of the exclusive or non-exclusive status.’ – Dreamstime CEO, Serban Enache

In addition to offering photographers increased royalties, Dreamstime has also worked on creating new tutorials and guidelines for photographers trying to stay financially secure during these trying times. Clients have also been offered relief in the form of a free two-month pause on subscriptions.

Further, Dreamstime has been contributing 5% of its sales to the World Health Organization’s Solidarity Response Fund since March. Additionally, active non-government organizations in need of visual content can contact Dreamstime for a free subscription.

As PetaPixel pointed out, the timing of the royalties increase is interesting. In late May, competing stock photo company Shutterstock announced a new earnings structure for its contributors and the response was very negative.

For comparison, Dreamstime’s new structure has been met with a very positive response. In the comment section on the company’s announcement blog post, many users have not only expressed gratitude, but some have even mentioned specifically that they have either shut down their Shutterstock accounts in response to its change in royalty structure.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Apple loses patent lawsuit, will have to pay RED royalties for ProRes RAW format

13 Nov

Apple has failed in an attempt to over-throw patents held by RED that govern methods for compressing Raw video, leaving the company open to paying royalties on its ProRes RAW file format. Apple had tried to show that the technology RED patented around its RedCode codec was obvious and shouldn’t have been granted protection, but the court rejected the claim leaving RED secure to license the lossless compression technique to camera, software and accessories manufacturers.

It seems that Apple had wanted to avoid paying royalties on the ProRes RAW format it introduced via Final Cut Pro last year, and which is used in some DJI drones, some Atomos recorders and a few other products. The problem is that RED claims ProRes RAW uses technology it owns for compressing those RAW files to make them manageable to work with. RedCode allows Raw video to be captured and compressed in-camera in much the same way that stills cameras do, allowing data directly from the sensor to be recorded and made available for very flexible post-production manipulation.

RED’s technology allows files to be compressed by ratios of up to 22:1, though it says 3:1 is mathematically lossless and 8:1 is visually lossless. The value of this is not only that it allows video files to be reduced in size, but also that for the same size file videographers can record in higher resolutions to provide the means for heavy cropping and frame splitting in post-production.

RED President Jarred Land posted on the RED User forum that he was glad the company’s technology remained protected but that the dispute between RED and Apple was just a means to finding where each stood technology-wise so they could continue to work together. He wrote:

‘We are pleased to see our REDCODE patents withstand another challenge.

To be clear, as I mentioned before, this never really was Apple vs. RED. It has always been APPLE + RED, and this was all part of the process defining how we work together in the future.

RED integration with Apple’s METAL framework for realtime R3D playback is coming along well and the work that the two teams are doing together is exceeding expectations. We are very excited for the new Mac Pro and the new XDR pro display and the power they bring to the entire RED workflow.’

The ‘another challenge’ refers to a similar attempt made by Sony in 2013.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Polaroid wants Fujifilm to pay millions in royalties for Instax Square format

17 Nov

According to a report by World Intellectual Property Review, Fujifilm has filed a complaint for declaratory judgment, asking a US district court to clear the company of any wrongdoing after it was allegedly threatened with trademark litigation by Polaroid over the borders around its Instax Square images.

According to the suit, PRL IP, the brand licensor and marketer of the IP rights for Polaroid instant cameras, has turned against Fujifilm, “by suddenly demanding millions of dollars in annual royalty payments, on threat of a lawsuit.”

Fujifilm says Polaroid sent the company a letter in January 2017 stating that the “square form” of photographs taken by Fujifilm’s Instax camera is “essentially identical” to the trademark and trade dress rights owned by Polaroid. In March, another letter said that Polaroid would have “no choice but to take appropriate action to protect” its IP rights if Fujifilm would not take its Instax Square film off the market.

A third letter, sent in June, demanded royalty payments, and the complaint goes on to say that “on November 8, 2017, Fujifilm was notified that a negotiation meeting between the parties scheduled for the following day was cancelled because the lead investor expressly instructed defendants to pursue litigation unless Fujifilm complied with demands.”

PLR IP owns the US trademarks covering the borders surrounding instant photographs, but Fujifilm’s claim says that after filing for bankruptcy and discontinuing many product lines in 2008, Polaroid has been “unable to return to profitability through product sales” and now seeks “to generate revenue from what remains of the Polaroid IP portfolio”.

Fujifilm is asking the court to declare that its Instax film photos do not infringe any Polaroid IP rights, and is requesting cancellation of Polaroid’s trademarks.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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