Tuesday, January 31, 2017
$IMTL – Recent Acquisition of ImageProtect Proves Fruitful – Generating Strong Revenues Through Market Niche of Digital Image Copyright Enforcement
On March 15th, 2016, (OTCMKTS: IMTL), former Image Technology Labs, announced the completion of the merger with imageprotect.com, successfully entering the digital copyright enforcement market and becoming Image Protect, Inc. The two companies were perfectly suited for each other. On one hand, former Image Technology Labs brought an established image and data organization platform. On the other, Image Protect brought a rapidly expanding copyright-enforcement business model. Together the two companies formed as one to create a rapid growing, revenue generating copyright enforcement business for the protection of digital image assets. The merger was so successful in fact, that in less than 9 months (OTCMKTS: IMTL) reported $299,024 for Q3 revenue, representing a 338% increaseover the previous quarter in 2015. By the end of 2016, (OTCMKTS: IMTL)had opened copyright infringements in 13 countries worldwide while processing an upload of over 50 million images for protection. The Company has even executed exclusive agreements with six of the top photo producers in the world.
How is (OTCMKTS: IMTL) achieving such success in so little time? The answer is simple, really; the demand for this copyright is astounding when fully realized. Let’s start with the digital photography market as a whole. The digital photography market is $82.6 billion USD annually* and it is estimated that 8 out of every 10 images on commercial websites are stolen, depriving copyright owners of billions of dollars.
This market is broken up into two distinct categories. Industry Giants such as Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) - who purchased Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock, Twitter, Inc. (NYSE:TWTR), and Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE), serve as the distribution channels. The other half are the marketplace, which include giants such as Shutterstock, Inc. (NYSE: SSTK) and Shutterfly, Inc (NASDAQ: SFLY), with market caps of $1.91 billion and $1.78 billion respectively, represent the digital copyright clients. But don’t let these industry giants steal all of your attention. The $82.6 billion digital photography market is made up by amateur artists as well.
With the advent of digital cameras and smartphones, taking photographs worthy of the marketplace is easier and anyone can do it. Professional photography is not limited to professionals any longer. Professional photography can now be performed by anyone with a smartphone. In today’s age, a countless number of amateur photographers are selling their works on their own websites, contributing to this lucrative industry.