A few years ago microstock [2] was seen as a completely different business to that of 'professional stock images', in 2008 along came 'general acceptance' of microstock by professional photographers, and by 2010 the line between microstock and traditional macrostock [3] was starting to blur ever more. You could start to imagine that the term microstock will fade away with low-cost crowd-sourced images becoming available from the same supplier as full priced ones. Any microstock sites which are related to the major stock industry leaders will always be a wise place to invest your upload time.
Corbis Company Overview
Founded Owned by Bill Gates, Corbis has never made a profit (>2009). Many believe it was setup by Bill to acquire rights to famous works of art with the intention that these works would be licensed back to individuals in a 'future age' when digital artworks hand on our walls, Corbis own rights to many famous works of art by artists such as Andy Warhol and Ansel Adams along with a vast collection of contemporary stock images from a network of separate agencies.
Corbis and Microstock
Like Getty Images [4] who own istockphoto [5], Corbis had their own, less developed microstock interest in snapvillage.com [6], this was replaced in 2009 in favour of microstock style sales by their more developed brand at veer.com [7]. - a site that never seems to have taken off.
Corbis and VCG
In January 2016 it was announced that the Corbis image business was being sold to Visual China Group (VCG) as part of the deal VCG would be exclusive distributors of the Corbis collection in China and Getty images would distribute remaining markets worldwide.
It's quiet in here!