a21
March 31, 2005

SuperStock & PicScout—CASE STUDY

SUPERSTOCK PROTECTS ARTISTS WORK WITH PICSCOUT IMAGE TRACKER


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Found by PicScout


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SuperStock 1099-1720A
SuperStock, a subsidiary of a21 (OTCBB: ATWO), is a leading digital content marketplace for the professional creative community. It delivers high quality images and exceptional customer service. Together a21 and SuperStock (www.superstock.com) provide a whole new level of image access to the best photographers, artists, photography agencies and customers in the business, offering a valuable and viable choice in the stock image industry.

"We regard protecting our artists against copyright infringement as essential to our relationship with our artists," says Haim Ariav, President and Chief Creative Officer of SuperStock. Working with PicScout is an important part of SuperStock's continuing commitment to protecting the economic interests of our artist partners and their valuable work."

Seeing PicScout's initial success in the market, SuperStock joined the Image Tracker Service in September 2004. To assure that all cases are dealt with properly, SuperStock recruited Jennifer Walker, an experienced business manager and paralegal, for the new position of Copyright Enforcement Manager. "Our experience in working with PicScout has been outstanding," says Walker. "Of the possible infringement cases PicScout has identified, the majority are well on the way to being resolved. PicScout reports give us everything we need to verify copyright infringements and quickly seek resolution."

Now that SuperStock's images are uploaded into the Image Tracker Service, PicScout applies some of the most sophisticated web crawling and image recognition technology in the world to protect against copyright infringement of those images. The PicScout crawlers constantly monitor commercial websites in search of SuperStock's images. The results from the crawling are then compared to the images from the client database. After a match is found the PicScout quality assurance team reviews the results and creates a match report with additional information needed to follow up on the case.

"Many of the infringers are unaware of the violation and eagerly cooperate in resolving the issues," Walker notes. "This creates a real opportunity to educate users and strengthen our customer relations. We use infringements as an opportunity to educate our customers, most of whom really appreciate it. Even better, many contractually agree to purchase images from us in the future in exchange for reduced penalties. We consider this a real "win-win" situation for everyone involved. Our artists receive what would have been lost revenue for their work and our customers become more educated consumers of our products."

The Image Tracker Service enables SuperStock and many other agencies to monitor use of their images by commercial web sites. Agencies receive reports on a regular basis and are able to locate infringements, recapture lost licensing fees, and gain valuable information regarding who is using their images.

To learn more about how the Image Tracker Service can help you, please visit the PicScout website at www.picscout.com.


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