2006 News Archives

SAA votes to expand its mission to address the business interests of all professional stock photographers worldwide. The SAA mission was previously limited solely to the business of licensing Rights-Managed images. To reflect its expanded mission as a global community of professional photographers, SAA has also revised its membership qualifications so that any professional photographer who is involved or interested in stock photography is invited to apply.

For the first time ever, a diverse group of representatives from associations representing the interests of more than 10,000 image professionals - including photographers, stock archives, graphic designers, illustrators and educators - have come together as a coalition to respond with solidarity to pressing industry issues. All share common concerns about the impact of "Orphan Works" changes to copyright law, the need for copyright education and the evolution of industry standards.

SAA recognizes a pressing need to provide information resources to photographers about the business of stock. [Key]words™ is the latest SAA initiative to address this need.

Through dialogue with Getty Images about their “Rights Ready” licensing model and our participation in the PLUS Coalition and the new PLUS™Packs standards, SAA is an active proponent of new approaches to stock licensing that balance the needs of customers with the interests of photographers.

Everyone involved with digital images shares the challenge of tracking and managing their rapidly expanding collections. Embedding metadata in our image files - and preserving it - is the key to addressing these challenges, but it is under-used and under-supported. SAA’s “Manifesto” proposes a set of guiding principles, and suggests how we can put these principles into practice

When the copyright holder of a work cannot be located, it's commonly referred to as an "orphan work." The US Copyright Office has proposed "Orphan Works" legislation that could essentially gut the copyright protection now guaranteed to photographers. As currently written, the proposal offers a huge loophole that severely limits the copyright protection of images that can be classified as "orphan works."

SAA has launched a blog to provide up-to-date news and commentary to the stock community on proposed "Orphan Works" changes to US Copyright Law. This legislation, as proposed, would pose a serious threat to stock photographers by removing protections from unauthorized use of our images. Visit the SAA blog at http://orphanworks.blogspot.com/