"The professional photography industry has no reliable numbers about the potential fees lost every year because of online infringement. But one image licensing company has taken a guess: $10 billion a year. That estimate deserves a skeptical eye. Vivozoom, a microstock site run by two former Getty Images executives, is trumpeting the $10 billion figure in the headline of a press release today. Vivozoom cites research from the image-tracking firm PicScout, which found 85 percent of the rights-managed images on commercial Web sites are being misused. From that, Vivozoom concludes: “Stock and microstock theft totals up to $10 billion, based on PicScout’s 85 percent figure and annual revenues of $2 billion for the stock image market.” Vivozoom is muddling print spending and online spending, which are vastly different numbers. The $2 billion figure is commonly cited by stock industry authorities—including Corbis CEO Gary Shenk last year—to describe the global market for all stock photography, including print." Source: PDN   Read full Article