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“Licensing News Photos Is Expensive”

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Stephen Colbert suggests that a cost-saving effort on his show would be to reduce image licensing, saying “licensing news photos is expensive”, and suggests that childs’ play would better illustrate some of his stories.

Video archived — restoration pending.



Seems like maybe a few microstockers in Pelosi’s San Francisco district should be shooting some stock this week and cutting a deal with Colbert, no?

(Comments, if any, after the Jump)


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Originally published on Photo Business News & Forum on August 2, 2009. Comments are closed; this post is part of the archive.

9 thoughts on ““Licensing News Photos Is Expensive””

  1. I wish iStock would support editorial photos. That would obviously help with the cost. It would also destroy the business model of iStock’s owner, Getty Images.
  2. That is so American… share, but only with our guys. The world is limited to them only. If only the rest of the world would do the same to them!
  3. The public views us a punchline in this joke because some of us just can’t deal with the professional part of the profession. Maybe the solution to this problem is to become a “semi-professional” host of a television show and price Colbert out of his market; that’ll teach him……
  7. Hulu doesn’t work here in Canada, either. Oh what? There’s a world outside the US?! Go figure.
  9. Most if not all of Colbert material uses photos and video for parody and satire in ways that fall pretty squarely in the realm of fair use under US copyright law.

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