It’s crunch time for Getty Images, and for photographers(seattletimes.com)
seattletimes.com
It’s crunch time for Getty Images, and for photographers
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/its-crunchtime-for-seattle-based-photo-giant-getty-images-and-for-photographers/
140 comments
I used to earn over 100 usd per photo sale on 500px. Since they started licensing through Getty I get pennies. Litterally. Just a few days ago one of my photos got licensed where I received less than 1 usd in fees. I went to check on Getty's website and saw the cheapest you could license it from there was 50 usd. Talk about greed and getting screwed. I'm removing all my photos from 500px within a month.
Have you got experience with other photography platforms / comparison from the photographer point of view?
How much do you get when it's licensed on Getty for $50? It's an apples-and-oranges comparison to talk about your cut from 500px and the gross fee on Getty. I'm sure your cut on Getty is bigger, but I'm curious to know if it's 10x bigger or 50x bigger.
I received less than 1 usd in fees
I don't want to defend getty, ¿but are not most of the images licensed via subscription instead of one by one? For example, you can get access to getty images inside canva, I don't think they can paid 50$ per image when they sell a 10$ month subscription.
Greed? Supply and demand baby. I don’t know what pictures you take, but most likely, they’re a commodity and anyone can do it, especially nowadays. Maybe you feel like you are working hard to make pictures, but the labor theory of value isn’t correct. You get paid based on how easy it is for someone else to replace you. And while I don’t exactly understand the intricacies of stock photography, I’m guessing it isn’t that hard to take some pictures. Ergo, you get paid less.
The market says their photos are worth $50 to $100 per license. The new middleman in the market is taking 95-99% of that. The correct thing to do is to fire that middleman, and that's what they are doing.
Registered on Shutterstock 11 months ago, added 9 photos, sold 3 for a grand total of $0.75.
Selling stock photos made sense for photographers 10-20 years ago, not worth it anymore unless you're at the very top.
For the reference: https://www.shutterstock.com/g/MateoSan
Selling stock photos made sense for photographers 10-20 years ago, not worth it anymore unless you're at the very top.
For the reference: https://www.shutterstock.com/g/MateoSan
The reason people didn't buy these is because there isn't enough continuous color anywhere to put text on top of.
Nice photos but they are very "run of the mill". I can probably find thousands of "snowy mountains" pics, many of them with a free license.
Right, photos are average at best. I was looking to sell based on location / area where the photos were taken and it worked to some degree - all 3 purchases are from Germany and France.
It's just that there are too many photos and photographers out there these days. All pro photographers I've met were struggling to make a living off of it.
It's just that there are too many photos and photographers out there these days. All pro photographers I've met were struggling to make a living off of it.
You could maybe charge better rates for photogrammetry of real world objects to make 3d models?
I gave Shutterstock and Getty a go some years ago to see what would happen. From about a dozen photos, none of them make any money except one.
It's a bit annoying because that one photo is a generic image of a cargo ship. The rest are technically and aesthetically more interesting landscape and nature images. They just don't have the same commercial value as something that someone conveys a general and frequently applicable concept like "shipping".
It's a bit annoying because that one photo is a generic image of a cargo ship. The rest are technically and aesthetically more interesting landscape and nature images. They just don't have the same commercial value as something that someone conveys a general and frequently applicable concept like "shipping".
Yeah you have to be lucky and get the assignment to do the photography for the desktop backgrounds for Microsoft OSes and such.
But with people uploading their images free for others to use, many aren’t bothering with packaging images anymore.
But with people uploading their images free for others to use, many aren’t bothering with packaging images anymore.
Companies like pinterest, getty, and yelp are genuinely the worst. They're like leeches, and I hate how they constantly show up on my google searches.
I think the world is heading for, if not an ecological apocalypse, but a technology one too. Technology is far out pacing our understand of its impact on human development and society. We are screwed.
cough ...Google... cough
There are so many free stock photo sites out there these days that I can't understand why anyone would be hitting Getty up for anything. The quality across the free sites can vary but some are incredibly good. I made a list of about 50 a year ago, there's probably twice that number now.
https://www.mattcrampton.com/blog/mega_list_of_free_image_si...
https://www.mattcrampton.com/blog/mega_list_of_free_image_si...
Amateurs are happy to have 50 great sites to find things on. Most working professionals on a deadline don't have the time. You're not wrong, it's just that in the ad/publishing industry the editors time is probably worth more than the cost of licensing the photo.
I can’t imagine why anyone would want to be hitting up Getty for anything
I run a local sports blog covering a pair of National Football League and Major League Baseball teams. If I want high res, quality photos of the most recent games or photos of specific players or photo highlights I really don’t know of or have any alternatives other than Getty and the AP to get pictures specific to my teams.
If you know such a site I will happily check it out but there’s your answer.
I run a local sports blog covering a pair of National Football League and Major League Baseball teams. If I want high res, quality photos of the most recent games or photos of specific players or photo highlights I really don’t know of or have any alternatives other than Getty and the AP to get pictures specific to my teams.
If you know such a site I will happily check it out but there’s your answer.
A couple points to balance the opinions seen in the comments:
-While the photographic offer grew a lot over the past decades, demand spiked as well. Ask yourself: how many pictures have you seen since you got up this morning? We're surrounded by screens.
-It's not the camera that makes a great picture. However advanced and accessible the hardware gets, there's still a need for the creative minds operating it to produce quality content.
For sure, owning good equipment is not enough anymore to make a living out of it, which was the case in the past, especially for local, family photographers. These needs are now fulfilled by the technology in our pockets.
The scene is now worldwide. There's a profusion of imagery everywhere. To stand out of the noise, one needs to specialize and up the ante.
Getty and other stock providers make the growing demand and offer meet, dragging down the value of "common" photography (through dubious ways sometimes). There's still plenty of space for high quality production, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
-While the photographic offer grew a lot over the past decades, demand spiked as well. Ask yourself: how many pictures have you seen since you got up this morning? We're surrounded by screens.
-It's not the camera that makes a great picture. However advanced and accessible the hardware gets, there's still a need for the creative minds operating it to produce quality content.
For sure, owning good equipment is not enough anymore to make a living out of it, which was the case in the past, especially for local, family photographers. These needs are now fulfilled by the technology in our pockets.
The scene is now worldwide. There's a profusion of imagery everywhere. To stand out of the noise, one needs to specialize and up the ante.
Getty and other stock providers make the growing demand and offer meet, dragging down the value of "common" photography (through dubious ways sometimes). There's still plenty of space for high quality production, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
The internet commoditizes everything it touches. Its a race to the bottom regardless of the product or service...in the end everything ends up as a commodity.
I still don't understand how making a purchased company responsible for the debt of its own purchase is legal:
> Getty’s private-equity owners had financed the purchase of Getty with massive debt — $2.6 billion in the case of Carlyle — which became Getty’s debt.
> Getty’s private-equity owners had financed the purchase of Getty with massive debt — $2.6 billion in the case of Carlyle — which became Getty’s debt.
I'm surprised this is the only comment even mentioning private equity, while the article seems to point to the private equity takeover as the root of many of Getty's problems. While changes in the industry and technology have made things tough, I imagine Getty could have found a way to muddle along while still supporting photographers. But with all that debt and pressure to profit, it was almost inevitable that Getty became the disgusting leach that we know today..
Can you point to a law that makes it illegal?
Just think about the underlying principle. I borrow $10m from you to buy company X, pay myself a healthy commission, pay an accountant to do some financial wizardry, and now previously-profitable company X is $100m in the red and half the employees are laid off or something while I got a fat fee for restructuring the company.
No, which is why I raised the question - why isn't it illegal? Given the acts with a social cost that soon follow to "pay" for the company's acquisition? Redundancies etc.
It isn’t illegal because no one made it illegal, it’s pretty obvious no? But being a little less flippant, I can’t see any reason why it should be illegal. If I buy a company I should be able to do whatever I want with it. If shareholders didn’t have the power to make choices about the company they own, the very fabric of capitalism would be undermined.
Speed the day on that. This is exactly the sort of thing that's wrong with capitalism.
I don't understand why photographers don't sell their services as opposed to single photos for a few cents each. I've written plenty of articles for a popular website (now defunct) where I looked through Google Images for hours to find an "appropriate, interesting and HD image" (exact job requirements).
How long would it take for you to find a photographer, explain what you're looking for, negotiate a price and then finally receive the photographs you wanted? Probably more than a few hours.
This is where Getty adds value IMHO. Their site is a quick way to find extant photographs that fit most needs. (For this, I think their search is better than Google's.)
This is where Getty adds value IMHO. Their site is a quick way to find extant photographs that fit most needs. (For this, I think their search is better than Google's.)
Photographers do. But a lot of the time companies don’t want to spend thousands of dollars (and perhaps a fair bit of time) to get custom photographs shot. They may and do but that’s not always what you want.
They do, but time is money and most people don't want to put down fat money up front unless they run a fashion magazine or the equivalent. Look at what's been going on in the publishing industry, any cost that can be reduced is shaved down as close to nothing as possible.
Because not everyone can afford their services. They would have trouble finding buyers at the prices their services will be. Example:
> The federal Liberal government spent a grand total of $563 on the cover of its most recent budget... The cover production apparently included two stock images, the first costing taxpayers $527 and the second just $36.[0]
As opposed to:
> ... the $212,000 the Liberals paid an advertising agency to produce a cover and related materials for last spring’s federal budget with an appreciative shiver of disdain, pausing at various points to gag pleasurably on the details: the $89,500 for models hired to depict middle class Canadians ... [1]
I suppose the national government of a wealthy nation has no problem affording a few hundred thousand dollars on a bunch of photos. Most private and public organizations do not have that much budget for a couple of photos.
[0] https://globalnews.ca/news/4151874/budget-cover-cost-2018-li...
[1] https://nationalpost.com/opinion/andrew-coyne-bloated-glossy...
> The federal Liberal government spent a grand total of $563 on the cover of its most recent budget... The cover production apparently included two stock images, the first costing taxpayers $527 and the second just $36.[0]
As opposed to:
> ... the $212,000 the Liberals paid an advertising agency to produce a cover and related materials for last spring’s federal budget with an appreciative shiver of disdain, pausing at various points to gag pleasurably on the details: the $89,500 for models hired to depict middle class Canadians ... [1]
I suppose the national government of a wealthy nation has no problem affording a few hundred thousand dollars on a bunch of photos. Most private and public organizations do not have that much budget for a couple of photos.
[0] https://globalnews.ca/news/4151874/budget-cover-cost-2018-li...
[1] https://nationalpost.com/opinion/andrew-coyne-bloated-glossy...
Is this sarcastic? Plenty of photographers sell their services, and I'd wager anecdotally that a lot of photographers who do normally charge per shoot / per hour also contribute images to stock photo sites.
> Getty has been criticized for selling the rights to photos that are freely available in the public domain.
Searching for images on the web can sometimes mitigate this issue. Search by Image (maintainer here) can help you to quickly find alternative sources for images. It also supports several stock photo sites, so price comparison becomes easier. Visit the extension's options to enable the search engines you need.
https://github.com/dessant/search-by-image
Searching for images on the web can sometimes mitigate this issue. Search by Image (maintainer here) can help you to quickly find alternative sources for images. It also supports several stock photo sites, so price comparison becomes easier. Visit the extension's options to enable the search engines you need.
https://github.com/dessant/search-by-image
Just bear in mind that your ability to find an alternate source for an image does not mean that the image is in the public domain or that that the alternate source has the right to license the image to you. I'm not saying this is a bad strategy (especially if, due to its age or some other factor, it's obvious that an image is in the public domain), but be sure to do your due diligence.
Does this give significantly better results than just Google and TinEye? They often fail me.
I believe Yandex has the best reverse image search engine on the web today, Google's image results have considerably deteriorated in the past few years. Though if you're looking to compare stock photo prices, the engines of stock photo sites can also reliably find images.
Nice, thanks for that. Have definitely noticed Google Reverse Image Search oddly regressing but I'll try out Yandex.
Yandex for image search
It's a-typical. Make prices lower for customers, resulting in same or more revenue for the middle man (Getty, et al.) while screwing the producers.
Eventually, good photographers will leave.
Getty should be compensating lower prices by taking lesser share from the producers.
Eventually, good photographers will leave.
Getty should be compensating lower prices by taking lesser share from the producers.
I appreciate the work of photographers, but plunking down $500 for a high-res photo and knowing they're going to resell that same photo to others god knows how many more times has always rubbed me the wrong way.
I get there's hardware/time involved in setting up a single photo, but hell, not that much.
I get there's hardware/time involved in setting up a single photo, but hell, not that much.
> I appreciate the work of photographers, but plunking down $500 for a high-res photo and knowing they're going to resell that same photo to others god knows how many more times has always rubbed me the wrong way.
Honestly, that doesn't bother me that much.
What's truly absurd is wedding photography. Photographers get paid $1000+ and keep the copyright. Almost every other work-for-hire intellectual job involves an IP transfer.
Honestly, that doesn't bother me that much.
What's truly absurd is wedding photography. Photographers get paid $1000+ and keep the copyright. Almost every other work-for-hire intellectual job involves an IP transfer.
It seems that wedding photographers keep the copyright so that they can reproduce them for self-promotion and advertising, which totally makes sense.
Also, if you think the cost is unreasonable, I completely disagree. Photography is a very expensive vocation, and the wedding season is very short. There is little room for error, and the photos have an enormous emotional significance. The event day (or days) is incredibly long, and cataloging and processing images can be an enormous time suck afterward. I get that some people may not be interested in wedding photos, but that doesn't mean the photographers are overpriced for the work they do.
Also, if you think the cost is unreasonable, I completely disagree. Photography is a very expensive vocation, and the wedding season is very short. There is little room for error, and the photos have an enormous emotional significance. The event day (or days) is incredibly long, and cataloging and processing images can be an enormous time suck afterward. I get that some people may not be interested in wedding photos, but that doesn't mean the photographers are overpriced for the work they do.
> It seems that wedding photographers keep the copyright so that they can reproduce them for self-promotion and advertising
That's probably not the main reason, since many other artists are able to use their work-for-hire in self promotion. All they'd need is an appropriate usage license, not copyright ownership.
More likely, when wedding photographers try to keep the copyright, they are hoping to charge separately for additional prints or DVDs, control which print shop reproduces their work, enforce the presence of their watermarks, or relicense the images as stock photography. These are all additional revenue and advertising streams that would not be available if the customer held the copyright.
That's probably not the main reason, since many other artists are able to use their work-for-hire in self promotion. All they'd need is an appropriate usage license, not copyright ownership.
More likely, when wedding photographers try to keep the copyright, they are hoping to charge separately for additional prints or DVDs, control which print shop reproduces their work, enforce the presence of their watermarks, or relicense the images as stock photography. These are all additional revenue and advertising streams that would not be available if the customer held the copyright.
> Also, if you think the cost is unreasonable, I completely disagree.
The market sets the price. I don't really have a problem with that.
> It seems that wedding photographers keep the copyright so that they can reproduce them for self-promotion and advertising, which totally makes sense.
I understand the rationale. That doesn't make it any less absurd.
If I'm a freelance journalist I don't get to keep the copyright so I can do self-promotion. If I'm a freelance web designer I don't get to keep the copyright so I can do self-promotion.
If a photographer wants a portfolio to show potential clients, they can do what everyone else does: make a portfolio on their own time.
The market sets the price. I don't really have a problem with that.
> It seems that wedding photographers keep the copyright so that they can reproduce them for self-promotion and advertising, which totally makes sense.
I understand the rationale. That doesn't make it any less absurd.
If I'm a freelance journalist I don't get to keep the copyright so I can do self-promotion. If I'm a freelance web designer I don't get to keep the copyright so I can do self-promotion.
If a photographer wants a portfolio to show potential clients, they can do what everyone else does: make a portfolio on their own time.
Wedding photography is ridiculous even before the photographers get involved. The entire weddings industry in the US is one giant rabbit hole, capable of absorbing any amount of money, no matter how large, and returning little more than "an emotional experience" for it.
It's easy to get the copyright. Just say it's work done for hire, the RAWs are part of the deliverables, and they won't have to shoot anything stupid. If they balk, break it off and contact someone else.
Their job is lighting, framing, focus, capture, in that order. Postprocessing and prints are not part of the deal unless they can upsell it.
It's easy to get the copyright. Just say it's work done for hire, the RAWs are part of the deliverables, and they won't have to shoot anything stupid. If they balk, break it off and contact someone else.
Their job is lighting, framing, focus, capture, in that order. Postprocessing and prints are not part of the deal unless they can upsell it.
[deleted]
I agree somewhat with you, but might be able to put a bit more perspective on this.
Photographers use their work product as advertising, so attach their name to their work. They also often do any retouching themselves. This, along with copyright preventing modification of the images, allows those images to accurately reflect the abilities of the photographer.
It's a lot like software licensing in that way. As a company, you don't necessarily want someone tweaking your software you've sold to the and either expecting support, or even just possibly leaving a bad association with your software for the people that use it that don't realize that the reason it may be unstable is because someone has made unstable changes.
That doesn't make it good, but it does explain their thinking somewhat. Photographers are like software consultants, but because of the different time they came to prominence, they've managed to make it the norm that they retain rights to their work product. This is changing though. It's not too hard to find photographers that are willing to just dump the images to DVD pre-retouching and hand them over for you to do with as you wish. It won't be cheap, because they are losing out on being able to upsell you albums and video collages, etc, and their cost reflects not just the time they spent there, but their experience in knowing where to be and what to do to get the best pictures (in the same way that someone that pays my consulting rate is paying for my decades of experience).
Photographers use their work product as advertising, so attach their name to their work. They also often do any retouching themselves. This, along with copyright preventing modification of the images, allows those images to accurately reflect the abilities of the photographer.
It's a lot like software licensing in that way. As a company, you don't necessarily want someone tweaking your software you've sold to the and either expecting support, or even just possibly leaving a bad association with your software for the people that use it that don't realize that the reason it may be unstable is because someone has made unstable changes.
That doesn't make it good, but it does explain their thinking somewhat. Photographers are like software consultants, but because of the different time they came to prominence, they've managed to make it the norm that they retain rights to their work product. This is changing though. It's not too hard to find photographers that are willing to just dump the images to DVD pre-retouching and hand them over for you to do with as you wish. It won't be cheap, because they are losing out on being able to upsell you albums and video collages, etc, and their cost reflects not just the time they spent there, but their experience in knowing where to be and what to do to get the best pictures (in the same way that someone that pays my consulting rate is paying for my decades of experience).
This is silly. The most important "ability" of a wedding photographer, bar none, is to not screw up the part where they're actually capturing photos of the event. A wedding is a one-time event that people care a lot about, so this alone is probably well worth the $1000+ premium. Retouching the photos is something that anyone will be able to do at any time, given the untouched originals.
>Photographers get paid $1000+ and keep the copyright. Almost every other work-for-hire intellectual job involves an IP transfer.
That probably means the wedding photography business is not actually sustainable at $1,000 per engagement (no pun intended). They probably need to make (example) $1,500 per engagement to make it worth their time, but the industry has consolidated around a "standard" of lower foot in the door costs where they make up the additional money required on the back-end via licensing the IP.
One could create a photography business where there is a one time cost of $1,500 and the customer retains all IP rights, but customers probably just (ignorantly) view you as 50% more expensive than the "exact same service" sans IP rights.
The other thing to keep in mind, is by breaking out costs associated with IP ownership, the service isn't just hiding total up-front cost, they are also offloading some of the burden of cost from the purchasing decision maker (ie bride/groom) to the wedding guests.
I have no idea if the above is correct, but wedding photography is a commoditized service so odds are there's a reason it's standardized this way.
That probably means the wedding photography business is not actually sustainable at $1,000 per engagement (no pun intended). They probably need to make (example) $1,500 per engagement to make it worth their time, but the industry has consolidated around a "standard" of lower foot in the door costs where they make up the additional money required on the back-end via licensing the IP.
One could create a photography business where there is a one time cost of $1,500 and the customer retains all IP rights, but customers probably just (ignorantly) view you as 50% more expensive than the "exact same service" sans IP rights.
The other thing to keep in mind, is by breaking out costs associated with IP ownership, the service isn't just hiding total up-front cost, they are also offloading some of the burden of cost from the purchasing decision maker (ie bride/groom) to the wedding guests.
I have no idea if the above is correct, but wedding photography is a commoditized service so odds are there's a reason it's standardized this way.
It’s not just the time it took to take that single photo. It’a also the many, many photos taken that didn’t make the cut.
These people aren't fabulously wealthy, that's the pricing they need to be able to sustain themselves.
By "these people" do you mean the owners of Getty?
Photographers aren't getting paid much, the current rate is about 80% to Getty and 20% to the photog. The rate used to be 40% Getty and 60% photog, some people are grandfathered but only if they've been on Getty for 20 years.
Typical working photographers on Getty probably get paid dozens of dollars a month. Typical amateurs might get a dozen dollars a year.
Photographers aren't getting paid much, the current rate is about 80% to Getty and 20% to the photog. The rate used to be 40% Getty and 60% photog, some people are grandfathered but only if they've been on Getty for 20 years.
Typical working photographers on Getty probably get paid dozens of dollars a month. Typical amateurs might get a dozen dollars a year.
Amen. And a many are undercharging for subsistence. The prosumer market, subsidized by day jobs, really impacted the industry.
They're not wealthy because they've collectively decided to go for the easy money, jumping on-board the Getty train who takes an absurdly large cut of their profit.
As consumers we get hosed, but at least they've looked out for number one, right?
As consumers we get hosed, but at least they've looked out for number one, right?
You are subsidizing the thousand other photos that didn't sell with that one purchase. Of course photographers would love to only take pictures that sell, but it's impossible to tell ahead of time which one of the thousand will be the hit.
The article says that Getty is still deriving most of their revenue from generic stock photos? That was quite surprising to me, since Wikimedia Commons among other sites provides plenty of such images under "free content" licenses (including images in the public domain). Perhaps the typical downstream reuser is unwilling to resort to these for some reason?
Stock imagery is an art in its own right. Every newbie photographer thinks they can do stock images, but they can't.
Knowing what people want is key, along with the ability to perfectly execute it. For example "woman in blue dress sitting under fall tree looking at moon" might convey some of of commercial message that is used to sell everything from ebook readers to insurance and nets the photographer a fortune in licensing or royalties, but on the the other hand maybe nobody is interested in it, and if you cannot execute it perfectly, nobody will accept it into their catalog.
Why this Hanukkah photo is better than others, I don't know, but Shutterstock is featuring it right now so I guess it sells well and the colors and tones capture a popular trend:
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/jewish-holiday-hanu...
Knowing what people want is key, along with the ability to perfectly execute it. For example "woman in blue dress sitting under fall tree looking at moon" might convey some of of commercial message that is used to sell everything from ebook readers to insurance and nets the photographer a fortune in licensing or royalties, but on the the other hand maybe nobody is interested in it, and if you cannot execute it perfectly, nobody will accept it into their catalog.
Why this Hanukkah photo is better than others, I don't know, but Shutterstock is featuring it right now so I guess it sells well and the colors and tones capture a popular trend:
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/jewish-holiday-hanu...
> Why this Hanukkah photo is better than others, I don't know, but Shutterstock is featuring it right now so I guess it sells well and the colors and tones capture a popular trend:
It perfectly captures an advertisement aesthetic.
When I visited your link, I spent several seconds thinking the page hadn't loaded properly. I could see the caption, but not the image.
Then I realized that the image was in fact there, but my eyes were skipping over it in the exact same way I ignore banner ads.
It perfectly captures an advertisement aesthetic.
When I visited your link, I spent several seconds thinking the page hadn't loaded properly. I could see the caption, but not the image.
Then I realized that the image was in fact there, but my eyes were skipping over it in the exact same way I ignore banner ads.
Most of those images still require visible attribution, which is a non-starter for most commercial use. Advertisers don't want a big "image from flickr user foobar" right on top of the photo in their glossy magazine ad.
Furthermore, if there are recognizable people in them, they don’t have model release forms which are needed for things like ads.
Yes, publicity rights will always be messy. But there's a ton of free content that doesn't involve depicting actual living humans, where those would be an issue.
Anything free is going to ding your search ranking - just reverse image-search any image from Unsplash and you'll find thousands of content-farm clickbait adware using the same image. If your revenue is dependent on search ranking, that can get expensive really fast.
Okay, take the free image and apply some arbitrary "filters" just to make it harder to programmatically match. You've still paid $0, vs. the hundreds of dollars that Getty asks for.
Getty is the epitome of the evil corporation. They threatened a number of my customers (who all won against Getty via lawyers) for putting photos on their sites with dubious ownership rights.
I have experience with copyright law (unpleasantly) and there is a process required by the law to actually win a settlement on copyright infringement, and Getty uses thug tactics and threats to get small parties to pay up.
Their empire deserves to crumble.
https://www.extortionletterinfo.com/
I have experience with copyright law (unpleasantly) and there is a process required by the law to actually win a settlement on copyright infringement, and Getty uses thug tactics and threats to get small parties to pay up.
Their empire deserves to crumble.
https://www.extortionletterinfo.com/
I had the same experience. Had my website designed by a designer, then a few years later received a threatening letter saying that if I didn't fork over 4-figures for a small image that they used, they'd come after me. I ignored the letter and several follow-ups and never heard from them again, but I could absolutely see how they could intimidate a small business to pay up.
ah yes...
"Internet rages after Google removes “view image” button, bowing to Getty"
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after...
"Internet rages after Google removes “view image” button, bowing to Getty"
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after...
I never knew this. I've known several developer who worked for Getty and had a positive experience. Of course that experience has nothing to do with their legal tactics.
Yeah, looks like the majority of their revenue is literally based on entrapment:
> Just over half of Getty’s revenues, according to industry estimates, come from distributing “stock” photos — images of generic subjects, such as “house” or “orange juice” or “corporate executive,” that a commercial client might use in brochures, websites or advertisements.
> Just over half of Getty’s revenues, according to industry estimates, come from distributing “stock” photos — images of generic subjects, such as “house” or “orange juice” or “corporate executive,” that a commercial client might use in brochures, websites or advertisements.
They have some bots crawling around the web and sending out automated letters then to people who they think need to license their photos. I fucked around with the bit and wasted its energy since it came to my territory, at least 4 years ago it wasn't very smart. I just told them point blank to fuck off, probably they go only after American customers since they are in the legislation area to threaten.
So you stole someone else's property and told them to fuck off? And you expect praise for this? Even if you hate Getty, they're a platform that resells images individual photographers take.
sudhehhrhd(1)
Their business is selling pictures of "orange juice" to people who need pictures of "orange juice."
Sometimes people use their images without paying the fee.*
How is that entrapment?
* this is separate from issue of bogus requests to people who didn't copy their images without a license.
Sometimes people use their images without paying the fee.*
How is that entrapment?
* this is separate from issue of bogus requests to people who didn't copy their images without a license.
How is that entrapment?
There is a startup yet to be founded to sell inexpensive, high-quality original photos for exclusive use.
Unique photos, i.e. photos not considered "duplicate content", are critical if you want to rank organically on Google [0]
Getty will eventually be disrupted.
[0] https://www.rebootonline.com/blog/long-term-duplicate-image-...
Unique photos, i.e. photos not considered "duplicate content", are critical if you want to rank organically on Google [0]
Getty will eventually be disrupted.
[0] https://www.rebootonline.com/blog/long-term-duplicate-image-...
There are a ton of two-sided marketplaces out there that try to do this. It's a messy challenge involving rights management (no good photographer will agree to the contracts these companies offer), production workflows (all companies do it differently) and assignment complexities (by 'high-quality' you mean 'high-quality and custom to the project' because a nice but generic picture is mostly useless).
But you're right in that free photos like the ones from Unsplash are super expensive in the long run because of the search ranking penalty (you get grouped with all the spammers who are using those same free photos).
But you're right in that free photos like the ones from Unsplash are super expensive in the long run because of the search ranking penalty (you get grouped with all the spammers who are using those same free photos).
1. Let photographers license their photos from a list of standard licenses
2. Let photographers set their own prices
3. Let buyers search by budget and by license
4. Startup charges a X% platform fee
The market will take care of the rest.
2. Let photographers set their own prices
3. Let buyers search by budget and by license
4. Startup charges a X% platform fee
The market will take care of the rest.
I like it. What happens if ownership of an image is disputed, or it turns out the photog uploaded a photo that she had copied off the web?
> What happens if ownership of an image is disputed, or it turns out the photog uploaded a photo that she had copied off the web?
Presumably the purchaser sues the photographer.
One thing that marketplace could do is to require a bond from any photographers that would be used to help pay for any judgements.
Presumably the purchaser sues the photographer.
One thing that marketplace could do is to require a bond from any photographers that would be used to help pay for any judgements.
Send extortion letter
A long time ago I was Chief Data Scientist at 500px following the acquisition of a company I cofounded and this was exactly what I was advocating for. Professional photographers are cash poor, but with the right interface and contracts we could have done it. I wasn't able to get the CEO to see things my way and other problems with the company led to my departure, but I still think this is a viable business. The key here is what is meant by "inexpensive" because $500 is inexpensive to BMW but expensive to a startup.
I've sold photos on and off for 20 years (on a direct basis, companies contact me via my portfolio), and I've generally gone for a rough "$5 per employee that the company has" rate. A 10 person startup wants one of my photos? I'm happy to give it to them for $50. 200 person company with a marketing employee calling me? $1000 sounds about right. Microsoft wants exclusive use of a photo? $700k will do just nicely thanks ;)
You can't always accurately assess this of course, so it's mostly done by gut feel after learning a bit about the company, but it's done me well so far and I've never had a company turn down my price, nor have I ever felt like I've been taken advantage of.
You can't always accurately assess this of course, so it's mostly done by gut feel after learning a bit about the company, but it's done me well so far and I've never had a company turn down my price, nor have I ever felt like I've been taken advantage of.
This sounds kind of like Wonderful Machine -- connecting clients to high-quality photographers.
How are you going to get "high-quality original photos" if you won't pay pro photographers as you'd like to be "inexpensive"? By outsourcing it to Papua?
I've been kicking around the idea of digital escrow for that sort of thing. I put this file in the digital locker, you pay me money, and when you download the image the locker is cleared out. The purchase price includes the exclusive rights to that digital file and the creator gives up all rights as soon as the locker is opened.
File that into "side projects that I'll likely never get around to".
File that into "side projects that I'll likely never get around to".
That sounds like a perfect case for generative DL network photos. Especially the faces, which are also eye-catching.
Getty is already disrupted
Getty is already disrupted
Stocksy United is a photographers cooperative.
A much more worthy company to support.
No affiliation, just a fan of cooperatives and high quality photos.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stocksy_United
https://www.stocksy.com/
A much more worthy company to support.
No affiliation, just a fan of cooperatives and high quality photos.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stocksy_United
https://www.stocksy.com/
Surprised there was no mention of the upcoming threat of AI stock photos, and how easy it will be to generate massive amounts of these fast and cheap. Ne real people, who won't have to sign contracts or be paid.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/20/20875362/100000-fake-ai-p...
https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/20/20875362/100000-fake-ai-p...
Lately I've been imagining what it would take to create an AI-generated food image. It's super hard!
Just the rights management issue of the training set is a tough question. Then you have to account for quality, direction and dimensionality of light, food styling, props, custom products or ingredients, the list of challenges goes on an on.
Then after the image is produced, if you're a food company, all your imagery is a kind of 'claim-based' imagery meaning consumers assume it is real and in some cases, there are laws preventing the use of fake foods in ads.
I'm curious about the implications of a world where AI stock photos are ubiquitous, but some styles of imagery are pretty far out at the moment.
Source: Spent 15 years in the commercial photo industry.
Just the rights management issue of the training set is a tough question. Then you have to account for quality, direction and dimensionality of light, food styling, props, custom products or ingredients, the list of challenges goes on an on.
Then after the image is produced, if you're a food company, all your imagery is a kind of 'claim-based' imagery meaning consumers assume it is real and in some cases, there are laws preventing the use of fake foods in ads.
I'm curious about the implications of a world where AI stock photos are ubiquitous, but some styles of imagery are pretty far out at the moment.
Source: Spent 15 years in the commercial photo industry.
I do wonder if the rights management issue is impacted by the decision referenced in this article regarding training machine learning models on copyrighted material:
https://towardsdatascience.com/the-most-important-supreme-co...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._Google,....
https://towardsdatascience.com/the-most-important-supreme-co...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._Google,....
It seems like part of that case hinged on economic impact. If you're using copyrighted books and show snippets of the book that's one thing. But using copyrighted material to build something that is attempting to replace the copyrighted material seems like it could have gone the other way.
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> Lately I've been imagining what it would take to create an AI-generated food image. It's super hard!
I can’t wait for a chef to throw their arms up because they get tasked to create an AI-generated non-existant food tray that performed well in Amazon Turk focus groups.
I can’t wait for a chef to throw their arms up because they get tasked to create an AI-generated non-existant food tray that performed well in Amazon Turk focus groups.
I would love a image generator that would make images based on the ingredients. When creating a recipe database, not only do you have to photograph thousands of dishes, you also have to cook them.
The (human) models and photographers will be in real trouble when generative models are able to make an ad on the fly with a fake person who looks like your neighbor with the best landscaping using the advertised lawnmower.
Um, last I checked, AI models of humans looked super, super creepy. Not the sort of content you would want on a marketing campaign, that's for sure.
This has changed. It's hard to tell they're fake. For example, each reload of https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/ produces a new computer-generated image of a person.
> https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/
This is exactly why I read hacker news. This is both perturbing and amazing all in the same time with all the links you need to understand how it works under the hood. Thanks!
This is exactly why I read hacker news. This is both perturbing and amazing all in the same time with all the links you need to understand how it works under the hood. Thanks!
several of them I looked at had malformed ear (I assume the training set had earings and gauges and such mixed in) and one had a tuft of of hair growing out of their neck
[deleted]
You're right, that's better than it used to be by orders of magnitude. However, there remain things that "just don't look right". The most obvious I can spot is the teeth, followed by warped edges (odd indentations, a missing ear that ought to merely be partially hidden), followed by the eyes(more subtle, but definitely there). The "big swathes of skin" are generally fine. There are also wrong numbers of teeth, partially missing eyebrows, etc. Finally, there's not much correlation between apparent ethnicity and facial characteristics or hair. All these "just look wrong" enough to put someone off of a marketing brochure.
These are random images though. If you do want something specific, you can dial the right knobs to fix the issues you mentioned and match up the features you don't like. Adding some extra constraints should be possible if you actually want commercial usage.
I reloaded the page ten times and every single one had something clearly off.
It's hard to generate perfect images at high resolution. The fact that they are even plausible at high resolution is very impressive. If these were downscaled to 128x128 you would literally not be able to distinguish real from fake.
You mean like the Goldeneye box art? He has two mouths and it didn't stop the game selling like hotcakes.
https://gaminghistory101.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/goldene...
https://gaminghistory101.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/goldene...
Where’s the second one? I see one mouth and a fist (holding the gun) in front of it.
Some looked creepy, others looked average, others looked practically real. You can still retouch them a little using Photoshop and you have something that is 99.9% real. Good enough for a campaign.
It's time to check again. The latest ones are indistinguishable from real humans, at least to my eye. Somehow the uncanny valley has been crossed already.
Form what I remember that AI could only do one pose.
When was the last time you checked? Because the last time I checked I found it hard to tell the difference.
When the AI worked it worked well but when it failed the failure was obvious and creepy.
Once AI is good enough to take photos better than a human, I think AI will be good enough to make entire categories of jobs obsolete. Photographers will at least have a fun hobby to enjoy while collecting their basic income.
[deleted]
Another major shift that the article neglects to mention is global arbitrage. The advancement of camera + software quality and accessibility means people can make great pictures anywhere.
These days there are a lot of studios in the stock houses like Getty and Shutterstock that are based in Eastern Europe, or Asia, where the small amounts of money from stock images can really add up over time.
Copying styles, compositions and concepts of historically successful stock images means these producers make out quite well for their regional market by selling to more expensive markets.
Photo prices are going down for American photographers but it's still good money for smaller economies.
These days there are a lot of studios in the stock houses like Getty and Shutterstock that are based in Eastern Europe, or Asia, where the small amounts of money from stock images can really add up over time.
Copying styles, compositions and concepts of historically successful stock images means these producers make out quite well for their regional market by selling to more expensive markets.
Photo prices are going down for American photographers but it's still good money for smaller economies.
Picking on you a little, but I see lots of comments like this one on HN: Unsourced, industry inside knowledge, stated authoritatively, confirms my biases and fits into a narrative well known amoung the kinds of people who read HN.
I'm not really sure what the solution is. Thoughts?
I'm not really sure what the solution is. Thoughts?
I’m not sure people need to use a citation when effectively just saying “opening a market up to the world drives prices down”
Exactly. It's not making a controversial claim. But it is telling a specific story. And it's interesting because of that. If the comment was what you'd written to summarize it I wouldn't have payed it much attention.
Also, it's selection bias if "obviously sensical" anecdotes are believed and ones that disagree with our preconceptions aren't.
Also, it's selection bias if "obviously sensical" anecdotes are believed and ones that disagree with our preconceptions aren't.
Photographers should be already looking for another job or try some warzones. Cant beat the variety of AI models and photos.
Also, i think the article is wrong, stock sites have become ridiculously expensive, with shady subscriptions and daily limits and all. Sorry guys, it s a new century. Few people need print-resolution photos anymore
Also, i think the article is wrong, stock sites have become ridiculously expensive, with shady subscriptions and daily limits and all. Sorry guys, it s a new century. Few people need print-resolution photos anymore
I'm still annoyed that Google bowed down to them in their litigation settlement. Getty wanted have their cake and eat it too, by having Google surface the images, but not really surface the images. Google should have treated it like any other DMCA copyright infringement case and removed Getty images from their index. It would have allowed Google users to use more free images, and Getty would have no copyright claim.
Instead Google removed their direct image button, frustrating all users of their platform.
Instead Google removed their direct image button, frustrating all users of their platform.
Remove Getty Images and you’d have all sorts of comments about antitrust.