Branded Entertainment Network

Last updated

BEN Group, Inc.
TypePrivately held company
Industry Advertising
Rights clearance
Founded1989;34 years ago (1989) (as Interactive Home Systems)
Headquarters
Los Angeles, California
,
U.S.
Key people
 Ricky Ray Butler, CEO
Owner Bill Gates [1]
Website benlabs.com
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BENlabs, formerly BEN Group Inc, is a Los Angeles-based product placement, influencer marketing and licensing company. [2] [3] The company offers AI-driven product placement, influencer marketing services, music partnerships, rights clearance, and personality rights management services for the entertainment industry.

Contents

The company was founded in Seattle by Bill Gates in 1989 as Interactive Home Systems, and later renamed Corbis. The company's original goal was to license and digitize artwork and other historic images for the prospective concept of digital frames. In 1997, Corbis changed its business model to focus on licensing the imagery and footage in its collection.

The Corbis collection included contemporary creative, editorial, entertainment, and historical photography as well as art and illustrations. Among its acquisitions were the 11 million piece Bettmann Archive, acquired in 1995; the Sygma collection in France (1999); and the German stock image company ZEFA (2005). Corbis also had the rights to digital reproduction for art from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the National Gallery in London. [4]

Corbis later expanded into providing services for the entertainment industry, including brand integration and rights clearance services. In January 2016, Corbis announced that it had sold its image licensing businesses to Unity Glory International, an affiliate of Visual China Group. VCG licensed the images to Corbis's historic rival, Getty Images, outside China. Corbis retained its entertainment businesses under the name Branded Entertainment Network, which has since evolved to BENlabs—the name reflecting the company’s commitment to continual testing, development and optimization of its AI-driven brand to entertainment opportunity matching services.

Lines of business

BEN Group's Inc's businesses include product placement services, the celebrity photo agency Splash News, [5] as well as Greenlight, a business that provides clearances for images, music, video, and licenses personality rights for commercial use. [6] BEN directly represents the personality rights of various figures, including Albert Einstein, Buzz Aldrin, Sophia Loren, Charlie Chaplin, Maria Callas, Andy Warhol, Martin Luther King Jr., Marvin Gaye, Muhammad Ali, Steve McQueen, and Thomas Edison among others. [7] [8] [9] In 2015, BEN Group Inc acquired Plaid Social Labs, a leader in digital influencer marketing and integrations. In 2016, BEN Group Inc sold Splash. [10]

History

Founding

Bill Gates founded the company in 1989 under the name Interactive Home Systems; he envisioned a system for allowing customers to decorate their homes with revolving displays of artwork, including works by notable painters, using digital frames and technology that had yet to have been developed. [4] The company's name was changed to Continuum Productions in 1992 and later, to Corbis Corporation. [11] Interactive television was suggested as a way to deliver the content, but as the development of the planned product was under way, Corbis focused on digitizing content and acquiring rights to images. Corbis signed agreements with the National Gallery of London, the Library of Congress, the Sakamoto Archive, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. [11]

In October 1995, the company purchased the Bettmann Archive collection, which included the pre-1983 photo library of United Press International and its predecessor photo agencies, Acme and INP, the photo arm of the International News Service. Prior to acquiring the Bettmann Archive, Corbis represented roughly 500,000 images, a total that increased substantially when the Bettmann drawings, artworks, news photographs, and other illustrations were added to the company's portfolio. In all the Bettmann Archive contained 19 million images. [12] The archive was stored 220 feet underground in a refrigerated cave in the Iron Mountain storage facility, [13]

In 1995, the company won a contract with its first major photographer, Roger Ressmeyer, followed by several more, including Galen Rowell; this signalled growing interest in the world of professional photography, which up to that point had not taken the company seriously. [11] In 1996 the company acquired the exclusive rights to approximately 40,000 images photographed by wilderness photographer Ansel Adams. [14]

In 1997, Corbis named company veterans, Steve Davis and Tony Rojas, co-CEOs. Corbis also hired David Rheins to run Corbis' Productions, and Leslie Hughes to lead the company's B2B image licensing division, Corbis Images. [15] These hires marked the company's shift to a more market focused entity. Corbis Productions published several award-winning CD-ROM titles such as A Passion for Art: Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, and Dr. Barnes, compiled from the Barnes Foundation collection, and Leonardo da Vinci , which showcased the Codex Leicester. [16]

In 1998, Leslie Hughes was named President of Corbis Images. The company expanded internationally and through product development and further acquisitions. The company acquired Digital Stock Corp., a supplier of royalty-free images to further expand its offering. [17] In 1998, another division was added to Corbis Images when the company acquired Outline Press Syndicate, Inc., a supplier of celebrity portrait photography. Renamed Corbis Outline, the company syndicated studio portraits and candid photographs of actors, musicians, athletes, politicians, business leaders, scientists, and other celebrities and provided the images for sale to a broad range of national magazines. [18] The same year, Corbis also acquired Westlight, adding over 3 million images to their archives while scanning best selling images. [19]

In June 1999, the company acquired the French news photo agency Sygma, adding 40 million additional images to the company's collection, and expanding Corbis's portfolio beyond 65 million images. The archive is today stored in a preservation and access facility outside Paris. [20]

In 2000, Microsoft (a fellow venture of Gates) purchased the rights through Corbis to the image Bucolic Green Hills, which it renamed to Bliss for the default wallpaper of Windows XP. The image was taken in the Los Carneros American Viticultural Area of Sonoma County, California, United States by photographer Charles O'Rear in 1996, who previously sent it to Westlight which Corbis had acquired in 1998. [21]

2000–2010

Corbis's business-to-business image licensing business expanded with the growth of the internet in the early part of the decade. The company also expanded geographically, making multiple acquisitions such as the Stock Market [22] and expanding into the footage licensing market with the acquisition of Sekani.

2011–2013

2016–present: Sale of image licensing business

On January 22, 2016, Corbis announced that it had sold its general image licensing business, including the Corbis Images, Corbis Motion and Veer libraries and their associated assets, to Unity Glory, an affiliate of Visual China Group. The sale did not include the Corbis Entertainment business, which would remain owned by the company under a new name. Concurrently, it was announced that VCG would exclusively license distribution of the Corbis images library outside China to its rival, Getty Images. VCG has historically served as the exclusive distributor of Getty content in China. [7] Distribution of Corbis content was transitioned to Getty's outlets, and the company manages Corbis's physical archives on behalf of VCG. Of the deal, Getty CEO Jonathan Klein remarked that after 21 years in business, it was "lovely to get the milk, the cream, cheese, yogurt and the meat without buying the cow." [8] [45]

In May 2016, following the handover of the Corbis images business to Unity Glory and Getty, Corbis Entertainment was renamed Branded Entertainment Network, and re-located its operations to Los Angeles. CEO Gary Shenk stated that the company had organized over 5,000 brand placements in 2015, with clients including Cadillac, Jose Cuervo, Microsoft, and others. [46] In 2018, Ricky Ray Butler, was named CEO. [47] In 2020 BEN won the Agency of the Year award at the 10th Streamy Awards. [48]

See also

Related Research Articles

Getty Images Holdings, Inc. is an American-British visual media company and is a supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three markets—creative professionals, the media, and corporate.

Artisan Entertainment was an American film studio and home video company. It was considered one of the largest mini-major film studios until it was purchased by later mini-major film studio Lions Gate Entertainment in 2003. At the time of its acquisition, Artisan had a library of thousands of films developed through acquisition, original production, and production and distribution agreements. Its headquarters and private screening room were located in Santa Monica, California. It also had an office in Tribeca in Manhattan, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stock photography</span> Photographs with a specific use

Stock photography is the supply of photographs which are often licensed for specific uses. The stock photo industry, which began to gain hold in the 1920s, has established models including traditional macrostock photography, midstock photography, and microstock photography. Conventional stock agencies charge from several hundred to several thousand US dollars per image, while microstock photography may sell for around US$25 cents. Professional stock photographers traditionally place their images with one or more stock agencies on a contractual basis, while stock agencies may accept the high-quality photos of amateur photographers through online submission.

<i>Bliss</i> (image) Default computer wallpaper of Windows XP

Bliss, originally titled Bucolic Green Hills, is the default computer wallpaper of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. It is a virtually unedited photograph of a green hill and blue sky with white clouds in the Los Carneros American Viticultural Area of California's Wine Country. Charles O'Rear took the photo in January 1996 and Microsoft bought the rights in 2000. It is estimated that billions of people have seen the picture, possibly making it the most viewed photograph in history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Entertainment Rights</span> British multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate

Entertainment Rights PLC was a British multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that specialized in TV-shows and cartoons, children's media, films, and distribution. In May 2009, the company was acquired by Boomerang Media and merged into its own subsidiary Classic Media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bettmann Archive</span>

The Bettmann Archive is a collection of over 18 million photographs and images, some going back to the United States Civil War and including some of the best known U.S. historic images. The Archive also includes many images from Europe and elsewhere.

iStock Microstock photography website

iStock is an online royalty free, international micro stock photography provider based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The firm offers millions of photos, illustrations, clip art, videos and audio tracks. Artists, designers and photographers worldwide contribute their work to iStock collections in return for royalties. Nearly half a million new photos, illustrations, videos and audio files, are added each month.

Shutterstock is an American provider of stock photography, stock footage, stock music, and editing tools; it is headquartered in New York. Founded in 2003 by programmer and photographer Jon Oringer, Shutterstock maintains a library of around 200 million royalty-free stock photos, vector graphics, and illustrations, with around 10 million video clips and music tracks available for licensing. Originally a subscription site only, Shutterstock expanded beyond subscriptions into a la carte pricing in 2008. It has been publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 2012.

<i>Lunch atop a Skyscraper</i> 1932 photograph of workers atop the steelwork of the RCA Building

Lunch atop a Skyscraper is a black-and-white photograph taken on September 20, 1932, of eleven ironworkers sitting on a steel beam 850 feet above the ground on the sixty-ninth floor of the RCA Building in Manhattan, New York City. It was arranged as a publicity stunt, part of a campaign promoting the skyscraper. The photograph was first published in October 1932 during the construction of Rockefeller Center. In 2016 it was acquired by the Visual China Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyfraud</span> False copyright claims to public-domain content

A copyfraud is a false copyright claim by an individual or institution with respect to content that is in the public domain. Such claims are wrongful, at least under US and Australian copyright law, because material that is not copyrighted is free for all to use, modify and reproduce. Copyfraud also includes overreaching claims by publishers, museums and others, as where a legitimate copyright owner knowingly, or with constructive knowledge, claims rights beyond what the law allows.

EMPICS, a PA Media company, is a UK firm which deals with licensing photographs of people and events for the press and other mass news media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles O'Rear</span> American photographer

Charles O'Rear is an American photographer. His image Bliss was used as the default desktop wallpaper of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. O'Rear started his career with the daily newspapers Emporia Gazette, The Kansas City Star, and Los Angeles Times; worked for National Geographic magazine; and was part of the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project. He began photographing winemaking in 1978.

Demotix was a photo agency that enabled freelance photojournalists to license their photos to mainstream media organisations, charities, and stock image buyers.

500px is a global online photo-sharing platform that is a subsidiary of Visual China Group. It is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was co-founded by Oleg Gutsol and Evgeny Tchebotarev on October 31, 2009.

Splash News is an entertainment news agency. The company provides candid celebrity photography and video content to entertainment print, online, and broadcast media outlets.

Jean-Pierre Laffont is a French-American photojournalist, born in Algeria, based in New York City. He was the founding member of Gamma USA and Sygma, the largest photography agency in the world, which in 1999 was acquired by the Corbis Corporation.

Eliane Laffont is a New York-based editor, creative director, image consultant and entrepreneur. She notably opened the U.S. office of Gamma Press Images with her husband Jean-Pierre Laffont in 1968 and in 1973 co-founded the breakaway Sygma Photo News Agency, the largest photography agency in the world. Laffont currently serves as a senior consultant for Visa pour l'Image.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual China Group</span> Chinese photo and media agency

Visual China Group (VCG) is a Chinese photo and media agency. Established in 2000, it is a supplier of stock multimedia content to the commercial media industry. VCG is currently the largest stock image and media footage provider in China and third largest in the world.

Sygma was a French photo agency. Sygma was established in 1973, was acquired by Corbis in 1999, and went bankrupt in 2011. It was one of the largest and leading photo agencies, with offices in Paris, London and New York City, and about 500 photographers under contract.

Roger Ressmeyer was an American photographer. He specialized in a number of fields in photography, including photojournalism, celebrity portraits, musicians, nature and the environment, space and space exploration, and science and technology. He was also an entrepreneur, starting his own photography agency that was ultimately purchased by Bill Gates and merged into the photography agency Corbis, an author, a futurist, a stock photography industry executive, and an advocate for photographers.

References

  1. 1 2 Lohr, Steve (July 18, 2010). "In a Partnership of Unequals, a Start-Up Suffers". The New York Times . Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  2. ↑ "BEN Group Inc | AI Entertainment Marketing". BEN. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
  3. ↑ "Give Your Creative Vision the Greenlight". GreenLight Rights. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
  4. 1 2 3 Hafner, Katie (April 10, 2007). "A Photo Trove, a Mounting Challenge". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 10, 2007. Retrieved August 17, 2022.
  5. 1 2 "Corbis buys L.A. firm that specializes in celebrity photos". Seattle Times. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
  6. ↑ "Corbis Simplifies Music Licensing With GreenLight Launch". Billboard. Archived from the original on November 10, 2015. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
  7. 1 2 "Bill Gates' Corbis Images Sold to Visual China Group". Variety. January 25, 2016. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
  8. 1 2 "Corbis sale to Chinese company may be boon to Getty". Seattle Times. January 22, 2016. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
  9. ↑ "GreenLight Adds Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash To Rights Roster". Billboard. Archived from the original on May 11, 2016. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
  10. ↑ "The Branded Entertainment Network (BEN) Announces Sale of Splash News to SilverHub Media UK Ltd". www.businesswire.com. December 2, 2016. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
  11. 1 2 3 Rapaport, Richard (November 1996). "In His Image". Wired UK. Archived from the original on June 29, 2004. Retrieved August 17, 2022.
  12. ↑ Jesse Birnbaum; David Bjerklie; Patrick E. Cole (October 23, 1995). "HISTORY: GATES SNAPS TOP PIX". Time . Archived from the original on October 30, 2010. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  13. ↑ Haynes, Gary. "UNDER IRON MOUNTAIN Corbis Stores "Very Important Photographs" At Zero Degrees Fahrenheit" (PDF). National Press Photographer's Association . Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  14. ↑ Lohr, Steve (April 2, 1996). "Gates Acquires Rights To Adams Photo Images". The New York Times . Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  15. ↑ "Industry leaders join Corbis to meet growing demand for visual content". BNET. 1997. Retrieved June 15, 2014.
  16. ↑ Teather, David (February 8, 2005). "The software billionaire's $170m sideline". The Guardian . London. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  17. ↑ "Gates' Corbis Archive Acquires Digital Stock". The Seattle Times. February 3, 1998.
  18. ↑ "Outline Press Joins Corbis; Premier Celebrity Image Provider Joins Forces With Market Leader Corbis to Create World's Most Extensive Celebrity Portrait Business". Business Wire. July 14, 1998. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  19. ↑ Pickerell, Jim (May 20, 1998). "Corbis Acquires Westlight". Selling Stock. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  20. ↑ Balean, John (May 15, 2009). "PAN Special Report: The Sygma Preservation and Access Facility". PhotoArchiveNews.com. Archived from the original on March 10, 2012. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  21. ↑ "The story of the Windows XP 'Bliss' desktop theme—and what it looks like today". PCWorld. Retrieved January 12, 2017.
  22. ↑ "Corbis Acquires The Stock Market Photo Agency". March 22, 2000. Archived from the original on July 15, 2011. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  23. ↑ "Hughes to Lead Newly Consolidated Markets and Products Group".
  24. ↑ "Corbis Opens New Film Preservation Center that Rescues and Preserves Access to America's Most Famous Images" (PDF).
  25. ↑ "Corbis Acquires Zefa, Third-Largest Image Licensing Company in the World". January 4, 2005. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  26. ↑ Ferrone, Chris (October 3, 2006). "Corbis acquires Australian Picture Library". Archived from the original on January 4, 2011. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  27. ↑ "Corbis Announces New Leadership Team". Archived from the original on December 2, 2005.
  28. ↑ "Corbis Acquires Veer". Archived from the original on September 29, 2011.
  29. ↑ "Corbis Rebrands as "GreenLight" and signs Steve McQueen licensing deals". License! Global. June 24, 2008. Archived from the original on July 24, 2011. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  30. ↑ "Corbis Opens Sygma Preservation And Access Facility". DesignTAXI. May 18, 2009. Archived from the original on May 24, 2011. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  31. 1 2 Phelps, Brent (January 21, 2009). "Corbis partners with Thought Equity Motion". Archived from the original on April 29, 2011. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  32. ↑ "Veer's New Website Equals Simpler Shopping, More Affordable Images & Fonts". July 14, 2010. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  33. ↑ Buley, Taylor (July 19, 2010). "Start-Up Goes Public on Corbis Fraud, Starring Bill Gates". Forbes.com. Retrieved May 10, 2011.
  34. ↑ Ferrone, Chris (March 20, 2006). "Corbis reports on 2005 Financial Performance". About the Image. Archived from the original on May 26, 2011. Retrieved August 17, 2022.
  35. ↑ Ando, Ritsuko; Gershberg, Michele (November 27, 2007). "Corbis on Verge of Profitablity". Reuters. Archived from the original on October 19, 2015. Retrieved August 17, 2022.
  36. ↑ "Corbis and Costco". Debra Weiss creative consultant. December 9, 2010. Archived from the original on May 24, 2011. Retrieved August 17, 2022.
  37. ↑ Walker, David (January 11, 2022). "Acress Sues Corbis to Shut Down Online Marketing of Celebrity Images". Photo District News. Archived from the original on January 15, 2011. Retrieved August 17, 2022.
  38. ↑ Walker, David. "Celebrity Smackdown: Walking the Red Carpet Is Consent, Judge Says". PDN. Retrieved December 2, 2015.
  39. ↑ Puech, Michel. "5 photographers take Corbis to court!". La Lettre. Archived from the original on March 26, 2012. Retrieved August 17, 2022.
  40. ↑ "The AP And Corbis Combine Image Libraries in Distribution Deal – paidContent". Paidcontent.org. August 23, 2011. Archived from the original on September 25, 2011. Retrieved August 17, 2012.
  41. ↑ Elliot, Stuart (January 8, 2012). "Corbis to Acquire NMA Group". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 8, 2012. Retrieved August 17, 2022.
  42. ↑ Cook, John (May 16, 2012). "Bill Gates-owned Corbis faces $12.75M in damages in fraud case". GeekWire. Archived from the original on May 20, 2012. Retrieved August 17, 2022.
  43. ↑ Apostolou, Natalie (May 16, 2012). "Gates' Corbis busted again for fraud". The Register. Archived from the original on August 17, 2022. Retrieved August 17, 2022.
  44. ↑ "Corbis Acquires Demotix". Market Wired. November 14, 2012. Archived from the original on September 12, 2014. Retrieved August 17, 2022.
  45. ↑ "The Decade-Long Image Licensing War Is Suddenly Over". Time. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
  46. ↑ "Corbis Rebrands To BEN, Moves To L.A. To Focus on Product Placement". MediaPost Publications. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
  47. ↑ "Ricky Ray Butler Named CEO Of Bill Gates-Owned Product Placement Agency BEN". www.tubefilter.com. March 19, 2018. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
  48. ↑ Billboard Staff (December 13, 2020). "2020 YouTube Streamy Awards Winners: Complete List". Billboard. Retrieved December 12, 2021.

Further reading


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