Letter From Ipix|
Letter From Ipix |
|
In the spirit of fostering good will I publish this letter that I received from Ipix. Bob Subj: Introduction Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 12:48:19 -0400 From: joe.ortiz@ipix.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Mr. Erickson, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm the Vice President and General Manager of the iPIX Still Photography business. In searching the Web looking for potential photography sites to market our new software that will be launched in Jan '04, I came across your site. Having been with iPIX for over five years, and seeing all the steps and mis-steps we've made in the marketplace, I fully appreciate your iPIX free positioning on your panoramic.net Web site. Since I became GM last year, I've found myself more than once apologizing on behalf of iPIX to individuals personally affected by iPIX's previous approach to providing full service photography services. This approach had us effectively competing against our own pro-photographer customers. I'd like you to know that is has been almost 3 years now since we discontinued our full service photography business and have focused instead on providing marketing programs and support for our professional photographer community. I'd like you to know also that we have never required customers to publish their images on our own Web site. We do offer a hosting service, but this is optional and we expressly make no claims of ownership to any images which are hosted on our site. Regarding our Key business model, I'd like to say that if you don't like the model, I understand and that's fine. I at first scratched my head over the model as well. What I've found though is that for many of our photographers, the fact that we give away our software, and only charge when they have an image they publish, actually works well for them. They know that when they have a job, they can add in the $10 per image charge into their end customer cost (typically $250 / image or more) and it's not a problem. For others, we have for two years now sold an unlimited seat license. This annual license allows for an unlimited number of images to be published. With our product lunch in 2004, we will introduce additional models. What I'd like for you to consider is the following. Whether you personally are a professional photographer or not, you do cater to the professional photographer community with your Web site. As such, I would assume that an important issue for this community is respect for Copyrights. I've seen more than one discussion thread on the Web dealing with a pro photographer's immersive panoramic image being misappropriated without payment. Of course we all understand this is not only bad judgment on the part of the person misappropriating the image, it is illegal. US Copyright law is clear in this regard and no one disagrees with the rights of the photographer to protect himself from this type of illegal action. Now, the same governmental department that defines and regulates Copyright rules, the USPTO, also defines and regulates Patent rules. iPIX, does have patents in the field of immersive fisheye photography, and the validity and position inherent in those patents by virtue of being granted by the USPTO is the same as with copyrights. Your site, which argues against iPIX because of business practices and our business model, also incentivizes people to infringe on our patents. While I can understand your issues on business model and practices, the situation with our patents is different. I hope you can appreciate the position this puts me in. Similar to the pro photographer who does not get paid for his investment in shooting images that are misappropriated, inducement of people to use infringing fisheye software sets us up to have to deal with a legal situation we'd rather not have happened. Since becoming general manager, I have opened up discussions with a number of anti-iPIX individuals. As I've said, there are valid concerns that have been raised and no one at iPIX has ever addressed them in the past. I hope to do so. At the end of the day, I am a business person seeking to grow through offering value to customers. After all the hype, aggressiveness, and arrogance during the internet bubble years, we remain as a small business (15 people) working hard to grow the marketplace for panoramic photography. I appreciate your consideration on this matter. I respect your rights to protest and boycott iPIX, and to comment publicly about our business model. But I'd also ask you to please take into consideration the comments I've made about intellectual property and our business model & practices. I would sincerely appreciate an update to your IMHO page so it does not misrepresent iPIX nor induce infringement of our intellectual property. I would be happy to discuss this further, at your convenience, if you have any questions or comments. Thank you again for your consideration. Kind Regards, Joseph L. Ortiz Vice President, General Manager Immersive Still Imaging Group Internet Pictures Corporation 1009 Commerce Park Drive, Suite 400 Oak Ridge, TN 37830 http://www.ipix.com |
|
Hosted by
|