NEW YORK, NY (October 30, 2008) – PhotoShelter CEO Allen Murabayashi says they have been in talks with Diablo Management, the liquidation company now in control of Digital Railroad's shut-down, and on behalf of the estimated 1,500 customers who still have images in DRR's archives PhotoShelter has negotiated a little bit more more time for photographers to try to recover their files.
Diablo Management has told PhotoShelter that they intend to shut down the DRR site as early as 11:59 p.m. PST on Friday, October 31, and that after that time images on DRR servers "could be permanently inaccessible."
This gives photographers and agencies a little more time to try to save their work.
Digital Railroad has no plans or resources to deal with their former clients' files, as the company is out of cash and employees are gone. Murabayashi "strongly suggests" that former DRR customers migrate their files "immediately."
David Sanger, the legal chair for the Stock Artists Alliance, has been in communication with Western Technology, the bank that foreclosed on Digital Railroad and is the only secured creditor, as well as Diablo Management and Sanger has appealed to both to give photographers more time to recover their files. SSA said in a statement today that Digital Railroad's system was "so overloaded" on Wednesday that outbound image transfer was disabled and reinstated several times, adding to the frustration for photographers were were trying to download image files and sales reports.
SSA today also said that they have been in contact with many photographers who pre-paid Digital Railroad more than $500 in service fees and licensing fees, some as recently as last month.
The initial DRR shut-down notice to customers on Monday said users would have 24 hours to get their files, but then Diablo or DRR shut down access shortly after 5 p.m. EST that same day. The short window of opportunity for photographers to recover their work was totally unacceptable, and many photographers were caught traveling or on assignment, uploading new image files and unaware of the dying company's plans.
PhotoShelter is welcoming DRR customers with a special 3-month free offer and FTP migration tools to help photographers recover their images. The PhotoShelter offer – promoted on their Web home page – is good until November 4.
Today there is also an offer from liveBooks to DRR's former clients, a savings of up to $800 on a liveBooks Professional Web site. Their unlimited site which is regularly priced at $3,200 is available now for $2,400 for DRR clients who make the switch, and the basic site package that is regularly $800 is available for DRR clients at $600. There is also a $90 a year hosting fee.
Despite the extra time Diablo says it is giving DRR clients to access their work, photographer Alejandro Pagni in Buenos Aires, Argentina, told News Photographer magazine this morning that his DRR page is "not operative now," and that he can "get to the server, but all my pictures in high resolution are missing. I have only thumbnails."
PhotoShelter's vice president of marketing Andrew Fingerman told News Photographer magazine today that the problem Pagni is experiencing appears due to the fact that DRR's servers "are so overloaded that a good portion of the images files are becoming corrupted. Some files are coming over as truncated, distorted at times, or simply reading within the file 'Image not available.' We have confirmed this is an issue on DRR's end, and DRR is aggressively trying to ensure file integrity. We will keep updating the community as we learn more."
