Music and movies may grab the most headlines when it comes to piracy, but many content providers on the web are also having trouble managing their images, which are easy to crop, resize, and copy. Some services, like Attributor, try to monitor and track offending images, but the ultimate solution may well lie in removing the temptation in the first place by offering cheap and easy to find legal images.
Earlier this year, GumGum launched an image licensing platform that was designed to help publishers quickly locate and license images. The site served as a content hub, offering a searchable database of images that could be licensed on a CPM basis or for free alongside an ad.
Unfortunately, every one of GumGum’s images was served as an embeddable Flash widget, which made them both clunky and annoying for publishers, as the images couldn’t be resized or modified. The use of Flash allowed GumGum to include their ads with the images, and also made it harder for people to rip them off (though you could always just take a screenshot). PicApp, a similar image search and licensing platform, uses Flash as well and suffers from the same issues.
Today GumGum has announced a new approach to their licensing platform, and this time, there won’t be any Flash involved. To use the system, users need only include a single line of JavaScript on their page. From there, they can include any image they want using a standard HTML tag. The pricing models will be the same: publishers can either pay a fee based on image impressions, or they can include ads on top of their images. GumGum’s new platform can detect licensed images and overlays the ad on top of it, so there’s no need to use a special widget.
Another key shift in GumGum’s new approach is its decision to stop acting as an image hub – you’ll no longer be able to search through content catalogs to find an image. Instead, GumGum says that it will connect you directly with the content providers, who typically offer their own databases. By taking this approach, GumGum is turning away from the typical consumer and is becoming more of a B2B solution for blogs and sites that frequently rely on licensed images.
GumGum isn’t going to be able to stop image piracy – there’s simply no way to get around the “Print Screen” function without including an annoying watermark. But businesses who can’t afford to be caught up with illegal content may well appreciate GumGum’s new more flexible system, provided the company can make good on its arrangements with content providers. The service has already landed some big customers, including MTV Europe.
In conjunction with the launch of the new platform, GumGum has annouced a Series A funding round of a reported $1.2 million.
ok. this is a much better approach. there was just no way to serve the images fast enough in flash, at scale.
This is better, but CPM for images? no thank you
So now when companies recognize they were stupid, it’s also news.
@Alaska- When you are being stupid no one cares. I’d rather be news.
That’s an awesome comeback. Did you ask your kid to help you with that?
GumGum is a total joke. There is nothing up on the site. This is a ridiculous atrocity with absolutely zero potential. Nobody in there right mind will pay CPM for celebrity garbage photos that already only cost $1 for internet use and the ad supported model doesn’t have a large enough audience to make it a viable business in any manner. Dead pool!
Johnny – We are currently tracking over 300 million license views per month and working with the likes of Gawker, MTV and several other major publishers that will be announced in the coming weeks. Also, not sure where you are getting the $1 figure from, but it is simply wrong.
This looks like a joke really. I am completely agreeing with the comment above mine. In today world, I can only be amazed there have been investors in this start-up. Come on!
GumGum’s new approach is so seamless and simple that it’s truly a game changer. It’s now so easy to be legal, why not just do it? Think Apple’s approach with iTunes… if you make it easy for people and give them a better pricing model, they’re out of excuses.
I’m with Arrington.
Ophir – Celebrity photos cost 28.5 cents each here (for both print and online use) –
http://www.shut...humb_size=large
In fact these photos are from many of the same events that you get from the shameful paparazzi sources you have on board. You should know this space. On top of that, your 20% gross margins are frankly despicable.
no matter what they do, they won’t able to stop piracy because that is as old as time
This works for images, but how about video? Flash seems to be the chosen technology for streaming content to mobile and PCs.
chrispateros – Our focus is not on stopping piracy, but on improving the monetization of content. The expectation is that we will make the process so seamless, easy and fair that incentives to pirate are drastically reduced (not all that different from iTunes). We have already seen many publishers go legit as a result a our offering.
Onsense – Our, as of yet unreleased, video product works with Flash. Flash makes sense for video, not for images.
dude – you guys have got this. this may sound like a cliche, but this is a real need. i have myself considered to create sthng very similar because i always found a nice food pic on a blog but didnt know how to license it for my own food site. gud you guys are now focosuing on the b2b segment – its small publishers who cant affort the high price of a getty images who will license great pics being put up by bloggers who can monetize this better than cheap paying google ad sense !
this is a real need. the mantra on the internet is “you make money through cents” and not big dollars. because the amt one is willing to pay is directly proportional to the actual energy one spends in getting that thing and inversely proportional to its availability.
i don’t understand why people give companies a hard time like this. this company is clearly attempting to change an industry for the better. stop the hate! get a life!
Just because they can’t find an ActionScript programmer that can create the features they needed. HTML/JavaScript is noting in comparison to ActionScript 3 and just because a browser has some nice included futures doesn’t mean you can recreate any of them. Sounds to me like they had a staffing problem and where forced to limit there features and find other ways to do things.
I like the companies idea and Ophir and he is a competitor to my company Cutcaster which says something about both. Ophir has done something very interesting for the stock industry which they struggled with. He found a way to match actual views with a pricing mechanism. While there are some issues with what they created, like serving ads overlaid on a celebs pic who never endorsed the ads and using flash to start, i wish them luck.
At http://www.cutcaster.com we are trying to accomplish the same pricing question. Cutcaster offers royalty free images, stock photos, stock footage and stock photography for advertising, publishing or web design. We are tackling the same issues with our image and footage pricing algorithm and the ability to buy content ala carte or on demand or bid on content so you can name your price. We want to commoditize content and create a dynamic marketplace for it. Slightly different then gumgum’s approach but our pricing algorithm could help a company like gumgum price their CPM rates better.
John
And yet, I have this nagging feeling that CPM images are just not a great approach… Anyone think GumGum can compete with websites like sxc.hu or any one of thousands of art stock ites that only charge you once to do whatever you want with an image?
We actually rely on GumGum a lot and have made a great partnership with them.
Wherever the hell you are getting $1/image pricing from is absolutely ridiculous! I wish it was that cheap. Going directly to any of these content providers will easily cost you a minimum of at 30 bucks an image.
Plus if you are too cheap to pay the CPM model for the gossip photos you shouldn’t be in the industry to begin with.
Go pull a Perez Hilton and start dealing photos.
*** stealing photos.
Sorry one more thing… a lot of you are mentioning stock site.
The content provider that GumGum pairs up with are providers that serve, for the lack of a better word, ‘real time’ photos. Not some crap that was taken weeks ago.
As an editor at Instyle online, we actually only pay $1000 per month for all you can eat photos from the major celeb agencies, so I don’t think this model works.
On a side note – the comments here appear suspect. After reading all the comments here, it seems that after being attacked John from Cutcaster and Trey Cruz appeared to defend the model, but they seem to have a vested interest. The truth is from a customer side, celebrity photos are already really really cheap already for online use and paying more for them through a CPM model or slapping ads on them, while seemingly a nice solution, will not actually play out in volumes as the images are really affordable from great photo agencies already. It’s a very saturated, crowded, competitive market.
That is hilarious. Suspect. I have ZERO vested interest outside of creating a successful company myself.
I’m suspect that you have a vested interest in a photo agency that sells you “all you can eat” celeb images for a 1000 bucks a month and don’t like what GumGum is doing bc you’d be paying more w GumGum based on your viewership, which at the end of the day is fair to the photog and more precise way to value the licensing price of a photos.
I will be even more honest and say that I have no idea who Trey is though. He may be suspect. hahaha
http://www.cutcaster.com
@InStyle
LOL. I guess it’s only “good” depending on your use of it. If you can afford the $1000 upfront then by all mean it’s great and more cost effective… but your InStyle… com’on. You guys have been established forever.
@John
Yea Trey is definitely Suspect. He’s Nick Denton’s former bitch boy.
this thing looks good but I think its something everybody is now getting into and am not sure if its going to be something very profitable.
well they are quite correct here
wisdom of time i would say.