Getty Images, one of the world’s largest media licensing companies, has partnered with Flickr to add a broader selection of pictures to its online catalog. Getty will hand-pick a number of Flickr members to participate in the program, with a goal of acquiring thousands of images in the next few months.
Getty editors will use a set of tools jointly developed by the two companies that will enable them to easily scan through Flickr photos to find the best of the crop. Each selected member will have their images licensed through a special Flickr-branded section of Getty’s site, and will receive portions of the licensing fees collected by Getty (there is no set payout structure - each selected participant in the program will need to negotiate their own deal with Getty).
Flickr members will likely try to do anything they can to become a part of the program, which stands to offer them both wide exposure and compensation for their work. Unfortunately, there’s currently no way for a Flickr member to apply to become a part of the program - they need to be “discovered” by Getty’s editors. It’s also hard to tell how lucrative the deals will be for photographers, as Getty has yet to form any partnerships.
first!
I bet people will come up with an intelligent way of getting “discovered”.
I really think flickr is over rated.
Sounds like a way for Getty to get cheap content. And a way for Getty to discourage the use of open source / royalty free images.
Obviously the quality and quantity of Flicker images is having some impact.
Cool… well I am already represented by Getty, so I wonder if they will automatically find my expanded Flickr portfolio. It will be interesting to see if this lowers the price of all their other more expensive licensing options.
Very interesting development. It’ll be interesting not just to see who is discovered but how fairly they’re compensated. Most Flickr photographers are quite green when it comes to licensing their work. Given the file size requirements of stock it will be interesting to see how Getty filters through those using lower resolution cameras. In that vein I’m curious what stock market they’ll be targeting with Flickr photographers… microstock? traditional stock? something new?
Definitely an interesting development to follow.
@Trey - just had a look at your website - your pictures are amazing!
We’re running the stock photography site and the process of selecting marketable images out of all the ones submitted is quite a chore. I wonder what kind of “set of tools” Getty will be using to pick thousands out of many millions of Flickr photos, the bulk of which won’t even get close to qualify.
Seems a little strange that Getty went after Flickr - there are many other venues available for photographers to license their work, and there are many other sources Getty can get pre-screened high quality stock photos. I would be interested to see how it pans out for both sides.
http://www.keenimages.com
Getty has some very smart people. I am sure they have it all figured out. Great way to get content cheap. The quality of pictures on flickr is getting much better as camera technology improves. I wonder what is the average number of pictures an account on flickr has?
I got a dollar (that will soon turn into a dime) that these discovered photographers will basically take table scraps for payment from Getty and drive down the price even more on what a photographer gets paid.
Hi,
just one word: awesome!
There had been a lot of services (either offered by Flickr or outside of it) that tried to give Photos more exposure and let one sell his/her photos, but I think a partnership as this is going to hugely improve the situation, if so, just by the name that u can say, hey I have been with Getty Images.
As usual, there should be two different kind of people approached: Those that do photography already as business (as Flickr has addressed) and who will take it as another way and those that do it as a hobby and get some recognition.
For Flickr itself it is a perfect marketing solution:
1. Get a big name
2. Get more people interested in the website that seems to really have high-quality photos
3. Get people more photo eager to become part of the Getty celebration
I am definitely looking forward to that….
FUCK GETTY IMAGES!!
Everyone should boycott Getty Images for their latest scams. We recently got a $1000 demand from them because we had a tiny unlicensed thumbnail image on our site (which we paid for from a web developer). Now they are telling us to cough up $1k or else. And you think that’s bad? Other web site owners who paid for legit images from 3rd party web templates (such as Template Monster) are being hit with over $50k in fines from Getty! And I’m not talking big corporate sites, I’m taking about small businesses, blogs etc.
Here’s their SCAM:
1. They use PicScout to find an unlicensed image on a web site. Apparently PicScout ignores your robots.txt so scans all images on your server.
2. Getty sits on it for 6 months.
3. They send you a demand for 10x licensing costs plus other “undisclosed” fees.
4. They give you 3 choices: Pay the extortionate fees and take the images down, or, pay the extortionate fees as well as license the image, or, don’t pay and get sued.
Yeah, a nice C&D would be nice. If you’ve not looked into this before I recommend the following links, definitely worth a read!
http://extortionletterinfo.com/
http://www.sitepoint.com/forum.....p?t=390902
http://forums.digitalpoint.com.....p?t=144133
So, boycott Getty!!
this is a total PR joke by getty just like scoopt….total joke…getty is hopeless company, layoffs to likely come soon….boo getty PR garbage
What a joke…this is a scheme to get cheap content.
Azchael, what is the point of getting discovered when your getting paid hardly anything?
Trey your work is great to look at but its all photoshop. Let loose on it a little man. Also why in the world do you want the prices to lower? That just means less money for you.
You can use http://www.picitup.com to search for flickr content with creative common license.
There are some great visual filters in this site which makes the discovery of good flickr pictures a very simple and fun job.
This is a Web2.0 idea with a pre Web execution
Although Youtube also hand picked producers for their revenue sharing program. However YT did not have such a strong competition as Getty has in stock photos through the web. I doubt serious photographers will flock to (probably) low licensing fees offered by Getty if they’re already present in 100 other stocks. Overall - if Getty aimed for the masses, being just a monetization platform - it could work. This way, I doubt there is a web developer or publisher that can’t name 100 competitors to this deal.
interesting response on this announcement from photoshelter.
http://blog.photoshelter.com/c.....stock.html
sounds like this might not be such a good deal for the photogs.
@Richard: Simple application of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: esteem and recognition.
Hi. If you are reading this and hopefully are interested in Getty Images, I would be keen to get your thoughts (thumbs up or down) on a beta landing page for magazine clients on http://www.gettyimages.com/magazine
I want to use this page to test ideas, content, ways of communicating with magazine clients (picture reserachers, editors and publishers) and garner feedback from all.
Please leave comments on the website or email me on mark.gosnell@gettyimages.com
Thanks!