Getty Gets the Internet

In an era, where old media is either unwilling or unable to adapt to the Age of the Internet, Getty, the world’s largest photo agency, made a refreshing (and sensible) change. They just made over 35 million of their photos free for use on the Net, subject to some terms that show that we finally have a media company that “gets” the Internet!

You might be wondering what’s the big deal with that? Weren’t we already doing what Megan Garber describes anyway:
“If you find a photo, via Google Image Search or some such, that you want to publish on your blog (or tweet out to your followers, or use as your Instagram profile pic, or what have you), there is an extremely simple way to accomplish this: Download or screencap the image. Upload it. Boom. The Internet has shared its riches with you once again.”

Except that it has always been illegal (depending on which image you used):
“If you have engaged in this process with an image that happens to be from Getty, the massive digital photo agency, however ... then you are, I am sorry to tell you, a thief. You have violated Getty's terms of service; you have stolen its stuff.”

Ok, you say, so Getty just bowed to what was already happening; so what? Actually, they did a lot more. And that’s what impressed me.

Firstly, they still plan to make money the old way by selling the images that aren’t free to embed. And the free images can only be used for “non-commercial use”.

Secondly, Getty gets it that the meaning of “non-commercial use” differs from the physical to the digital world. For example, on the Net, any site (including this blog) could be using Google Ads as a way to make some money, even though the site itself doesn’t sell or market anything. Getty will allow such sites to use their free images. Just goes to show at least one media company gets the Internet!

Thirdly, you can only embed the pic for free, not copy it (To “embed” means to place a link to the original location, i.e., Getty. Like the way people embed YouTube videos and tweets). This is a critical point, because with an embedded link, Getty gets to place ads of their choice as part of the pic and make money of those ads! Plus, they reserve the right to mine the site in which they are embedded to collect user data. Data they could then mine for patterns.

Perhaps the hope for other media companies lies in following Getty: instead of fighting the Net, embrace it; and figure out new ways to make money.

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