Getty Images Makes 35 Million Images Free For Non-Commercial Use 66
kc123 writes "In an effort to deal with copyright infringement Getty Images is launching a new embedding feature that will make more than 35 million images freely available to anyone for non-commercial usage. Anyone will be able to visit Getty Images' library of content, select an image and copy an embed HTML code to use that image on their own websites. Getty Images will serve the image in an embedded player – very much like YouTube currently does with its videos – which will include the full copyright information and a link back to the image's dedicated licensing page on the Getty Images website."
Re:Embedded Image Player? (Score:4, Interesting)
Photographers? (Score:5, Interesting)
This looks like a trojan horse to allow Getty to gain a wide foothold around the web in a way they can control. There is nothing to stop them — in fact it's in their TOS — from adding ads to the iframe at some point. They will then be in a position of monetizing their images in a different way than licensing them, which mean they probably will not need to share revenue with the photographers.
Getty is currently owned by the Carlyle Group, which makes me wonder if this is part of a grand strategy to break the company up into sellable pieces. Having a segment with a internet-friendly, sharing, youtube-esque, business model and no existing liability to contributors is probably pretty attractive to them.
But my guess—nobody wants their nasty embedded frame on their site and this will be a dud.
Why the embedded "player" doesn't work (Score:5, Interesting)
Tried this out last night. It's highly restrictive to the size of the image they select.
Doesn't fit in the place you want to put it? Find another image.
Don't want the whole image? Find another image.
New Revenue Stream (Score:3, Interesting)
I also submitted this story. Here's a link to the Bloomburg Businessweek article. [businessweek.com]
From T other FA: "Eventually, Getty could include advertisements within the embedded images, much like YouTube videos embedded on personal blogs show ads [...] But Peters says Getty hasn’t figured out how exactly that will work."
Note that they are also specifically *not* stating that they will stop filing lawsuits over unlicensed use of their images, although they're moving away from that in the case of non-commercial use. The big question is, where will Getty draw the line and decide what is and isn't a "commercial use" of their images? And, is this a means for them to justify seeking larger payments for unlicensed use - because they will be able to argue that there's a "free alternative"?