----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Hi all, (I think Bill Gates may transcend our holy status!) Excuse dupes in cross posting. To pick up onthe Corbis line in " Wired" NOV 1996. ( I've been watching a special here in Australia about the growth of the computer industry called " The Nerds", Bill Gates, Apple, etc.). I wonder where Bill Gates fits education into his big picture? Has anyone written to CORBIS and found out? I emailed them once but got no reply, when they announced something on the list about a year ago. I can see that this could work out for us ( how naive!!!). Buy digital scans ( they'll have to be cheap), and have them sitting on our local server, ,... but the artists involved and CORBIS would have to have a benevolent attitude to education. I'll write to them snail mail. Has anyone else been in this direction before me? Anyone know what it costs? I found recently when I bought slides from Australian artists direct,( and am now buying some digital direct) that they were interested in exposure in a teriary setting, and did not see our visual library as a money tree. However to be fair to them, perhaps we could have software that makes students pay for a download of their images, the same as they would pay for a photocopy. Excuse my ignorance but is there such a software? In that case this would contribute towards any licensing fees demanded perhaps by Corbis and others? The article is indeed interesting. I'll paraphrase or summarise what I understood from this article. Bill Gates " content company" definitely has a 10 year profit plan projection, and in my opinion, the aim is to capture the digital content market as it transcends Analog? I suppose with the new Castanet project by Acrobat ( or Microsoft version which doesn't grapple with HTML at all), this could be happening soon! See the WWW site at: http://www.corbis.com * non boolean based searching ( natural language) * Delivery of 35 Mbyte ( average size) on custom-cut CD-ROMs, due to shorage of bandwidth and the length of time it takes to download; ( Watermarks are affixed to online images and cannot be blown up without blurring.). * delivery by LAN or WAN or cable modem or satellite dish.. * eventual diversity to suit futuristic digital formats. " CD-ROMs will not be long-lived at Corbis". * adding 40,000 images per month with 6 Scitex scanners ( worth 1/2 million each). * Has rights to works ( many non-exclusive as I understand) from Ansel Adams, Galen Rowell, etc., Library of Congress, rare civil war photos ( Medford Historical Society: Oregon), Pach Brothers, Saint Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum, National Gallery of London, Royla Ontario Museum, Detroit Institute of Art, Japan's Sakamoto, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 16 million item Bettman Archive. * CD-ROM titles - "A Passion for Art" ( little viewed Barnes Collecton of Impressionist Painting), Critical Mass, ( Multimedia history fo the buildingof th atomic bomb), " Volcanoes", " Cezanne"; Scheduled releases:"FDR" (37th American President) "Leonardo" - based on da Vinci notebooks bought by Gates( one for 30.8 million). Interested to hear different views, opinions? Jennifer QCA >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >in the latest issue of *Wired*, >November 1996, p.172+ is an interesting >(sobering) article about the development >of the Corbis digital image archive and the >direction this Bill Gates company is going. > >Merrill Smith >Rotch Library/MIT ****************************************************************************** Jennifer Brasher `` ` ` ` EMAIL: [log in to unmask] Art Librarian `` ` ` VOICE: +61 (07) 3875 3132 ` ` `FAX: +61 (07) 3875 3133 SNAIL MAIL ` ` ` ` Queensland College of Art Library ` ` ` ` * Griffith University ``````` * Clearview Terrace ``*` * Morningside Campus * PO Box 84 Morningside Brisbane Queensland 4170 Australia ****************************************************************************** "As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular." Oscar Wilde " The Critic as Artist. Pt ii." ******************************************************************************