Photographers are up in arms about a decision by Getty Images to make the bulk of its collection available to embed online free of charge for non-commercial bodies.
Participation in the scheme is mandatory for all of Getty Image’s contributors, with the exception of those who contribute to the elite Reportage by Getty Images and Contour by Getty Images.
Users of the new embed tool can take almost any photo in Getty’s vast library of more than 30m images and post it free of charge on social media, without fear of litigation. The tool supports Twitter and blogging platform WordPress from launch, but Getty has plans to introduce others in the immediate future.
It’s a huge repositioning from the company, which had previously developed a reputation for being litigious about unlicensed use of its photography, suing groups such as churches, charities and small businesses for infringement.
Benji Lanyado, founder of image marketplace Picfair, says Getty’s motivation is clear. “People who were previously not paying for Getty images, and were never going to… now do not need to pay for Getty images. Instead of chasing infringers, Getty is offering them a deal.”
Because the tool requires Getty code to be placed on the website the photo is embedded into, it also opens up whole new avenues of monetisation for the firm. The company has already been working with start-ups such as Kiosked, a Finnish firm which has the technology to turn any image into a clickable advert, enabling viewers to, for instance, purchase the dress Kate Middleton is wearing.
But it hasn’t announced any such plans at the moment. And that has raised the ire of the photographers who ultimately supply all of its images.
“It’s going to put people out of work, without the shadow of a doubt,” Jeff Moore, chairman of the British Press Photographers’ Association, told trade magazine BJP. “The first ones to fall will be small and independent freelancers and smaller agencies that are relying on small Internet sales.” Lanyado agrees, and has written an open letter to photographers in the wake of the deal, warning them to be wary of middlemen like Getty.
“Getty was one of the big agencies that was helping the creative industry in trying to make the internet work, making it pay, and they decided to go into the opposite direction,” Moore continued. “This is a massively cynical move from Getty.”
But the deal has downsides even if the user isn’t a photographer. Getty’s terms and conditions for those using its embedder are broad. The company “reserves the right in its sole discretion to remove Getty Images Content from the Embedded Viewer,” which Lanyado interprets to mean “they can disappear at any time, and/or be overlaid/replaced with adverts.”
“If the bloggers take the deal, they are accepting a chunk of Getty real estate that will live on their site forever,” he adds. “What today is an image, might be an advert tomorrow, or simply nothing at all.”
But Getty needn’t even go that far. If it manages to sink its hooks in across the social web, the company will be in possession of a whole new source of valuable data about how and when people use and share images. Combined with the power it already holds in the commercial photography market, it puts Getty in a unique position to entrench its domination.
Getty’s CEO, Jonathan Klein, says that “innovation and disruption are the foundation of Getty Images”.
“We are excited to open up our vast and growing image collection for easy, legal sharing in a new way that benefits our content contributors and partners, and advances our core mission to enable a more visually-rich world,” he adds.
“Image agencies have progressively alienated their lines of supply for around a decade now,” Lanyado concludes. “The little guy – the photographer – is forgotten about. Images should be affordable, but they should not be free, and photographers should be able to control the prices.”
