Ed: Shannon Fagan was one of the speakers at the New Media Conference held in conjunction with the June 2010 CEPIC Congress in Dublin, Ireland. Fagan has been in the stock business for a decade, is represented by most major agencies and is the president of the Stock Artists Alliance. He shares his observations about the state of the industry with PhotoLicensingOptions readers.

After the courts denied requests to join on the creators’ side of the Authors Guild et. al. v. Google, several photo and creative organizations, along with a few individual photographers and illustrators, have filed a separate class action against the search engine in April.

In January2010, pacaSearch will roll out a major marketing campaign to picture buyers to promote its new pacaSearch software. At a recent demonstration at PictureHouse in New York, Lee Horton, Multimedia Editor of K12 Inc. said, “Learning about the functionality and usefulness of [pacaSearch] put a big smile on my face. As a photo editor and art buyer, I search multiple sites daily. This tool puts more control in my hands. I can keep the results pages in tabs with fewer keystrokes, page toggles and site crashes. The relative percentages, predictive text and term definitions create a tight, clean search environment. With the launch of pacaSearch, I can successfully and accurately find imagery in less time, with less hassle, while having more agency resources at my fingertips. Thank you, PACA.”

On Nov. 4, the motion of four creative industry groups and several individuals to join on the creators' side of the Authors Guild et. al. v. Google was once again denied on appeal. Organizations that petitioned the court to intervene in the class action against Google included the American Society of Media Photographers, the Graphic Artists Guild, the Picture Archive Council of America and the North American Nature Photography Association. Chief among U.S. District Judge Denny Chin's grounds for denying their request was its untimely nature.