Founded in 2001, the Stock Artists Alliance is an international trade association of photographers who produce images for stock photography. The mission of SAA is to support and protect the business interests of professional stock photographers with regard to the worldwide distribution of their intellectual property.
As an advocate for its members, SAA encourages the use of fair contracts and ethical behavior at all levels of the industry. SAA monitors the stock photography industry and serves as an ombudsman for its members' interests in dealing with agencies and other distribution channels.
SAA's first major negotiation was with Getty Images to improve the photographers' contract.
In 2008, SAA joined over 60 other art licensing businesses (including the Artists Rights Society, the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Illustrator's Partnership of America and the Advertising Photographers of America, among others) in opposing both The Orphan Works Act of 2008 and The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008. Known collectively as "Artists United Against the U.S. Orphan Works Acts," the diverse organizations joined forces to oppose the bills, which the groups believe "permits, and even encourages, wide-scale infringements while depriving creators of protections currently available under the Copyright Act."
In October 2009 SAA formally became a member of the Alliance of Visual Artists an umbrella organization representing six photographic associations and some 45,000 professional photographers (direct and affiliated members) worldwide, led by Professional Photographers of America
Famous quotes containing the words stock, artists and/or alliance:
“I have, thanks to my travels, added to my stock all the superstitions of other countries. I know them all now, and in any critical moment of my life, they all rise up in armed legions for or against me.”
—Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923)
“When ... did the word “temperament” come into fashion with us?... whatever it stands for, it long since became a great social asset for women, and a great social excuse for men. Perhaps it came in when we discovered that artists were human beings.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“Let it be an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these disparities unites them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)