ReadWriteWeb

Early this morning PicApp announced a partnership with Automattic and integration with WordPress. More than 7.5 million publishers on WordPress' hosted service will gain access to 20 million stock images from services like Getty, Corbis and Jupiter Images. The one caveat with these images is that there is advertising embedded in them. While the blogosphere continues to debate the depth of image content, the true significance of the announcement is rooted in the fact that a new era of collaboration is upon us.

GumGum is a new license management solution for content owners that its founders say solves a serious problem with online content distribution. "Offline, content is licensed for a finite period of time to a predictable audience. These parameters enable content-owners and publishers to come up with reasonably good pricing arrangements," writes GumGum's founders, Ophir Tanz and Ari Mir, on the company blog. "On the Internet, however, content lives forever and usage is unknown. And herein lies the problem: How do you fairly price a license when circulation is unknowable?" The pair say that GumGum provides the solution via per usage licensing agreements.