Interesting

I did find it strange that that the photos from the last post had been found on Corbis. Words to keep in mind as I, erm, handle the situation here. This was written in 2000, and I wonder what he thinks of the system now. From The Digital Journalist:

What Corbis Did to Sygma
(or, We Had to Destroy the Agency in Order to Save It)

by Allan Tannenbaum
an ex-Sygma photojournalist

... In addition, in order to gain market share against Getty and other competitors, Corbis is cutting prices it charges to license photos. This results in lower sales reports for all photographers. Despite the efficiencies of modern digital image transmission, Corbis still wants a third of foreign office sales, leaving photographers with only 33% of a sale in France, not 50%. Corbis is attempting to make mass deals with magazines like Time, where the magazine would get unlimited use of Corbis photographs for one yearly fee, thus saving both parties enormous accounting costs. The effect on photographers' income would be devastating. How long before there is a Corbis button on Microsoft Internet Explorer, where you can get free photographic wallpaper or screensavers? Corbis is trying to be a one-stop photo shopping mall for everything from $3.95 term paper illustrations, to royalty-free stock images, to cheap framed prints to photojournalism!

... In the short time since I left, I found that there are lots of options, such as agencies that are managed on a human scale, a more personal basis, run by people who respect photography and photographers. There are many at magazines who don't like the way Corbis does business, and who like to work directly with photographers. The Internet is as accessible to individual photographers willing to use it as it is to Corbis. There will be new alignments, organizations, and opportunities in this time of flux. The spin-doctors at Corbis try to infer that the photographers who are dissatisfied with Corbis aren't willing to change in the digital age. Many of us have been using computers for years - I've been online since 1985. We are all well versed in scanning and sending digital photo files, have worked with digital cameras, and use the Internet for everything. We photojournalists have always been adaptable - we just don't want to adapt to our own extinction.