Late last year, a print by photographer Andreas Gursky, "99 Cent II Diptychon (2001)," sold for $2.48 million at auction, the second-highest price ever paid for a photograph and the highest price for the work of a living photographer. The record, set last February for a 1904 work by Edward Steichen, was $2.9 million.

The Gursky that sold at Phillips de Pury & Co. in November 2006 is a 22-foot-wide chromogenic color diptych, one of an edition of six, that provides an overhead view of a colorful, crowded...

The Securities and Exchange Commission has initiated an inquiry into Getty Images' stock option grants. In a statement released toward the end of last year, the company said that the commission had requested information and that Getty was cooperating, including establishing a committee to conduct an internal investigation with the assistance of outside attorneys.

In late November 2006, Getty announced its decision to delay the filing of its report for the third quarter of 2006 until the resolution of the inquiry into its stock option grant practices.

On Jan. 5, 2007, the company released a statement saying that it did not consider itself...

As part of the 10th anniversary of the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum has acquired images by Felice Beato, Tim Hawkinson and Irving Penn.

Beato was one of the first photographers to chronicle war and social upheaval. His images document many different conflicts, ranging from the Crimea and India to China and Korea, where, in 1871, he made the first known photographs of Korean people. The Beato collection acquired by the Getty includes more than...

A U.S. District Court has ruled in favor of Seattle-based photographer Lloyd Shugart in a case brought against him by shoe company Propet USA. According to Shugart's attorney, Philip Mann, the case could be the first ruling under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to favor a photographer.

Shugart had photographed products and images for Propet from 1999 through 2005, when he claimed the company used the images outside the scope of their intended purpose and removed copyright management information from the photos. When warned by Shugart, Propet filed...

Magnum Photos and Seattle-based OnRequest Images have formed a partnership that will help the photojournalists of Magnum form stronger ties with the corporate clients that use OnRequest for their advertising campaigns.

According to OnRequest CEO David Norris, the alliance was formed due to a growing demand for a "more realistic editorial style" in the corporate advertising and branding campaigns that have become...

Adobe Stock Photos, the royalty-free image service provided by Adobe, will discontinue service as of April 1.

On Feb. 4, CS2 and CS3 customers with Adobe Bridge-enabled applications received e-mail with information about the discontinuation. In a statement on its website, Adobe did not comment on the service's appearance in the upcoming versions of Adobe Creative Suite.

Adobe Stock Photos will be fully operational through March 3, after which it will disable the search feature. Customers may still purchase images through March 31, however, and customer support will be available until June 1. Adobe recommends uninstalling Adobe Stock Photos from the Creative Suite applications to ease...

In November, a federal court ruled that Corbis Corp. is liable for the loss of over 12,000 images taken by photographer Chris Usher. Usher sued Corbis in 2003 for damages when the agency failed to return all of the images he took on assignment in 2000 to 2001.

Though Usher had no record keeping method, he hired archivist Adrienne DeArmas to conduct a review. Corbis claimed that no more than 5,349 images were lost, but the court sided with DeArmas' calculation of 12,666 images.

In May 2005, a separate ruling had also favored a photographer against Corbis for losing about 40,000 images.

Amid this controversy, Corbis is expected to lay off 125 employees and close several offices...

Corbis Corp., the stock photography agency privately owned by Bill Gates, has applied for a patent that would offer a dynamic pricing model for royalty-free images. The "royalty-free plus" (RF+) model would not offer a fixed price, as most royalty-free models do, but, instead, would offer an arrangement under which both the seller and the buyer of an image can profit.

RF+ pricing will categorize images based on intrinsic values, including the cost of obtaining the content, the source and author of the content, and the cost to manufacture the content in different media. The new pricing will also incorporate extrinsic values that pertain to a user's previous sales history, current promotions or the current popularity...

An image by Richard Prince has beaten the record for a photograph sold at auction, selling for $3.4 million at Sotheby's in New York. The previous record had been held by Andreas Gursky for a diptych print that sold for $3.3 million at Sotheby's in London.

The untitled work comes from Prince's "Marlboro Man" series, in which the artist had captured images of cowboys from Marlboro cigarette ads. The image, one of two editions, measures 100 by 66 inches.

Prince was also the first photographer to break the $1 million barrier for a single photo, auctioning another cowboy...

World Picture Network discontinued its daily photo feed as of Feb. 1 in an effort to modify its strategy in the crowded photo distribution industry. The company will, instead, focus its resources on its growing photo assignment business.

While layoffs at WpN are imminent, the network will also add editors to manage the market demand for assignments to its freelance photographers.

WpN's photo feed featured daily coverage of the world's events. CEO Brian Miller said that the service was "not economically viable" given the state of the industry. Miller also noted that assignments are the company's most rapidly growing...