Re: [Leica] Corbis and Bill Gates question.

[chucko@siteconnect.com (Chuck Albertson)]

He wants material for M'soft's multimedia offerings, and for cash flow. The
upshot of Corbis' and Getty's acquisition of "small" stock agencies has been
to concentrate the ownership of a lot of photo archives in those two
companies, to the extent that the Antitrust Division and the FTC have been
asking questions. Take a look at this month's Digital Journalist,
http://www.dirckhalstead.org/, for some viewpoints on what Corbis'
acquisition of the Sygma photo agency has done to that agency. Most telling
(to me) was Allen Tannenbaum's remark that he had to ask a top Corbis exec
to stop referring to him as a "content provider."

Chuck Albertson
Seattle, Wash.

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Hull" <hull@telia.com>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 10:01 AM
Subject: [Leica] Corbis and Bill Gates question.


>
> Luggers
> I am very puzzled about why Bill Gates is buying up all the
> Photographic Stock Agencies.  Another one fell last week to Corbis, and
> for the life of me I cannot understand why a multi-billionare is
> bothering with such small companies.
>
> The only theory I have come up with myself, is that Bill Gates
> instructed one of his bean counters to buy as much stock as they can.
> By the time this instruction filtered down to the lower floor it was
> mis-understood and instead of buying stock certificates the order went
> out for Stock Agencies.  Maybe he doesn't know.
>
> Or is collecting monopolies his hobby or what?
>
> Anybody know the answer?
>
> Alan
>
>
>