The Corbis “Conspiracy”

Posted: August 30th, 2005 | Author: Michael R. Murphy | Filed under: General | No Comments »

Ok,so there’s no conspiracy,I just thought it was a catchy title. Blogs are all about catchy titles afterall.

I was listening to NPR the other night on the way home from work and this story comes on about an agency that represents dead celebrities…exclusively. You can listen to the story here. You might remember Apple posters featuring Albert Einstein. Thank the Roger Richmond Agency. It seemed strange to me at first until they rationally explained that the families of deceased celebrities seek out representation from Roger Richmond not to make a buck but to prevent the stars’ names and images from being used improperly. Fair enough.

Although an agent for deceased celebrities is odd enough on its own,the part I found peculiar and got me writing this is the author’s mention of Corbis. Maybe I live under a rock but I had no idea that Corbis is owned by Bill Gates. Again,that’s neither here nor there as far as the story is concerned. The interesting part is that Corbis recently purchased the Roger Richmond Agency.

Probably nobody cares but does it sound like a conflict of interest that the very celebrities whose images are sold as stills and other media at Corbis are represented by an agency also owned by Corbis? Therein lies the “conspiracy”.

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