stocks

As expected, iStockphoto launched its audio clip licensing service, called iStockaudio, on Wednesday.

The move marks another expansion for a site that pioneered the "microstock" business of inexpensive, royalty-free image licensing over the Internet. The company, acquired by stock art power Getty Images in 2006, also offers video, Flash animations, and vector illustrations.

iStock Chief Executive Bruce Livingstone announced the availability of the audio licensing Wednesday in a blog posting. The company has been accumulating audio clips over the last year, and now 10,000 are available.

"You can use our iStock tracks as many times as … Read more

Several young companies anticipate initial public offerings this week, but there's not a single high-tech outfit among them.

There's one green-tech company however. Changing World Technologies, a company that converts waste into oil, is one of four IPOs poised to hit Wall Street this week. Changing World is scheduled to price its IPO as early as Wednesday and could raise as much as $42 million, if it prices on the high end of its $11 to $15 per share range.

Nonetheless, while the four Wall Street prospects offer some excitement to their investors, there's little reason to … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif.--iStockphoto, which helped pioneer the "microstock" market for inexpensive, royalty-free imagery, plans to launch an audio-licensing business Wednesday.

The Getty Images subsidiary already offers photography, illustrations, Flash animations, and video. iStockaudio was a natural extension--one the company's customers had sought, iStock Chief Executive Bruce Livingstone said in a speech here at the User-Generated Content Conference and Expo.

"We're introducing iStockaudio on Wednesday this week," Livingstone said. The company announced the iStockaudio plan last May, but the actual arrival was delayed by a suddenly necessary overhaul to the site's search system, … Read more

The co-chief executives of Research in Motion and two other executives will pay more than $74.5 million ($92 million Canadian) to settle a stock options-backdating case, under an agreement approved on Thursday by Canada's securities commission.

Co-Chief Executives Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, Chief Financial Officer Dennis Kavelman, and Finance Director Angelo Loberto have agreed to contribute $31 million to RIM for the benefit they received from the incorrectly priced stock options granted to all employees from 1996 to 2006. They will also pay $36.4 million to defray costs incurred by the company in the investigation and $… Read more

Apparently, it wasn't as easy to launch a microstock site for lower-cost photography sales as Corbis thought it would be.

Corbis, one of the established powers in licensing stock photography, launched SnapVillage in 2007, arguing that the microstock market was still young. But on Thursday, Corbis announced that it will phase out SnapVillage by the end of the year.

Contributing photographers and illustrators, along with customers and existing imagery, will be moved to a new microstock part of Corbis' existing Veer property called Veer Marketplace. Veer, a stock art agency Corbis acquired in 2007, offers both royalty-free and rights-managed … Read more

Research in Motion's co-CEOs might have dodged what could have been one of Canada's largest penalties ever imposed with a settlement agreement announced Wednesday.

RIM announced that the company as well as "certain of its officers and directors" (which we know to be CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazardis) has settled with the Ontario Securities Commission over an investigation into stock option backdating at RIM over the last decade. The OSC still has to approve the settlement at a hearing scheduled for tomorrow.

The amount of the settlement was not disclosed; it's up to the … Read more

It was a rather blase day for Yahoo's closing stock price Friday. It didn't shoot to the moon on the latest Microsoft takeover rumor, nor crater to the Earth's core on fears that the software giant is never coming back in some shape or form.

But, nonetheless, Yahoo's newly minted CEO, Carol Bartz, was likely taking notice. Her potential fortune is tied to Friday's closing stock price.

Bartz, under her compensation package, is eligible to reap the rewards of 5 million stock options, which carry an exercise price based on Friday's close of $11.… Read more

Googlers who want to revalue their underwater stock options will have to wait until Tuesday for the voluntary employee option exchange program to launch, Google said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday that did not explain why.

The program--which allows allow employees to exchange all or some of their existing stock options for the same number of new options--was scheduled to launch Thursday and end on March 3. Employees were notified of the change in an e-mail sent Wednesday by Laszlo Bock, vice president of People Operations at Google, and which was included … Read more

Research In Motion's co-CEOs could be facing a hefty fine for their involvement in yet another stock options-backdating scandal.

The Globe and Mail reports that the Ontario Securities Commission--the Province of Ontario's SEC--is considering imposing fines of up to C$100 million ($79 million) on RIM's Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazardis as punishment for allowing stock options backdating to occur on their watch. Balsille would have to pay the majority of the fine, according to the report, which, if it reachs $100 million, would be a record for Canada.

Like many technology companies over the last decade, … Read more