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Getty Images Makes 35 Million Images Free For Non-Commercial Use

Posted by timothy on from the can't-beat-'em dept.

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."

45 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Embedded player by OptimalCynic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Getty Images will serve the image in an embedded player

    Yuck...

    1. Re:Embedded player by ackthpt · · Score: 2

      So much for hot-linking...

      This post brought to you by Johnson's Wax using the Geddy Posterizer Player

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    2. Re:Embedded player by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Getty Images will serve the image and advertisements in an embedded player

      Fixed the summary for you.

      --
      Better known as 318230.
    3. Re:Embedded player by marcello_dl · · Score: 2

      Maybe it works for them without other advertisement than a Getty logo. Every image becomes a banner for their site, after all. And it possibly boost their search engine ranking.

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      ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
    4. Re:Embedded player by Redmancometh · · Score: 1

      Hell just forcing dofollow or remove seems like it would work to that end.

    5. Re:Embedded player by overshoot · · Score: 1

      Let me guess -- it's all Silverlight, right?

      --
      Lacking <sarcasm> tags, /. substitutes moderation as "Troll."
  2. Re:Embedded Image Player? by Sarten-X · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The kind that appeases the lawyers and preexisting contracts.

    --
    You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
  3. Creative Commons exists for this kind of thing by nurhussein · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivitives will do the trick. I question the need for heavy-handed control mechanisms such as embedded players. I suppose they want to guarantee attribution and a link back to them, but people who are intent to steal their images are going to do it anyway.

    1. Re:Creative Commons exists for this kind of thing by smooth+wombat · · Score: 4, Funny

      but people who are intent to steal their images are going to do it anyway.

      Except it's not stealing, is it? Nothing is being taken. The people are just using the image for their own purpose with the idea being the image is still attributed to Getty, the distributor, and the photographer, who doesn't get paid for the use of their work.

      Obviously at some point the person would return the image since they're just borrowing it, not stealing it. That's what happens when someone "shares" their music with someone else, right? They let the other person borrow the music and when done, the person returns the music back to the person who bought the cd/album/mp3/whatever, not keeping a copy for themselves.

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    2. Re:Creative Commons exists for this kind of thing by mythosaz · · Score: 1

      Thanks for being the first person on Slashdot to eloquently explain the difference between theft and copyright. :/

    3. Re:Creative Commons exists for this kind of thing by smooth+wombat · · Score: 1

      And thank you for missing the sarcasm in my post.

      Because when you "share" music you've purchased, the person to whom you've "shared" returns the music to you, and doesn't keep a copy for themselves, right?

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    4. Re:Creative Commons exists for this kind of thing by mythosaz · · Score: 1, Funny

      This is Slashdot. I'm going to need a car analogy if you want me to understand these things...

    5. Re:Creative Commons exists for this kind of thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Because when you "share" music you've purchased, the person to whom you've "shared" returns the music to you, and doesn't keep a copy for themselves, right?

      Just like how when I "share" my food, the person to whom I've "shared" returns the food pre- or post-digestion. Or how when I "share" my seat, the person to whom I've "shared" returns the favor perhaps or literally cuts away at the seat to physically give the seat back to me even when I didn't per se ever own it. I mean, gosh, it's almost as if to share a physical object and to share access (and potentially copy a thing) are different--as if to light my candle from another's doesn't inherently diminish the first flame.

      In any case, the whole issue at hand is that theft implies a lack of consent from the owner of a thing to possession of the original copy of a thing. Once you get past that, it's no longer really theft if someone along the chain starts handing out copies after returning the original. It may be copyright violation, trade secret violation, trademark violation, a contract violation, or something else. But it's not theft. It's nothing like theft in most the above circumstances--the level of expectation of respecting an intent not to copy is mostly proportional to the personal or professional level of loyalty to possession the original. Once you get down to mass produced copies of music, games, etc by the original publisher, it's nothing like theft. But to borrow an original Picasso in a person's private collection and to make copies for sale or for free against that owner's intent, well that's another thing. But, then, even that's a point about the private collector's position and not Picasso or his heirs.

  4. But what good is it, really... by RandomUsername99 · · Score: 2

    But what good is it, really, without the built-in ability superimpose moronic LOLcats style text on them.

  5. Photographers? by Mrs.+Grundy · · 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.

    1. Re:Photographers? by normaldotcom · · Score: 1

      “We reserve the right to monetise that footprint,” Peters explains. “YouTube implemented a very similar capability, which allows people to embed videos on a website, with the company generating revenue by serving advertising on that video.” And while Getty Images has yet to determine how these ads will appear, Peters is confident that this capability will be introduced in the near future.

      TFA actually states that they plan on adding advertising soon, although they don't mention how these ads will be displayed in their "embedded player". I have no idea how they plan on advertising without being incredibly intrusive; I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

  6. Hacker's Dream by Russ1642 · · Score: 1

    Once a hacker gets control of it they can have the embedded players show anything they want much more easily than before. They could possibly even have the player show video. Sounds like a very juicy target.

  7. Why the embedded "player" doesn't work by santajon · · 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.

    1. Re:Why the embedded "player" doesn't work by arkhan_jg · · Score: 1

      You can't resize the source image, but you can resize the iframe and it will scale to fit. Scaling above the source image size will obviously lead to reduced quality/blurriness, but you can shrink it. If you want to have it be responsive design (and scale width/height due to browser size) it's fairly straightforward to chuck a little jquery at it, as is pretty common when dealing with making iframes responsive. I imagine a jquery plugin akin to fitvids.js will be along shortly to make it easier.

      For chucking in stock header image in a blog post and not having to screw about trying to find a CC image that suits (or risking a nastygram by ripping something off google images), it's not completely useless. Though the limited sizes of the source images I looked at mean it's not going to be useful for much more than that, and I think the DRM overhead is pretty annoying.

      It's not like most of us can afford to pay stock photo rates for our personal blogs though...

      --
      Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
  8. Re:Flashblock by santajon · · Score: 3, Informative

    But you will because the "player" is an iframe.

  9. photography has been reduced to commodity status, by dot_bull · · Score: 2

    Getty's new free editorial use policy is unfair to photographers. Writer? Paid. Editor? Paid. IT staff? Paid. Photog? Sucks to be you.

  10. New Revenue Stream by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I also submitted this story. Here's a link to the Bloomburg Businessweek article.

    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"?

  11. The first one is always free by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Get used to using them, expect a charge to come later.

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    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  12. That's not "why it doesn't work"....that's you wan by penguinstorm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Getty: "Here, take these high quality images and use them for free"
    Santajon: "I don't want that image. I want to crop it, and I'd like to apply an artificial aging filter to it so I can look like a douchebag."
    Getty: "That's not the image we're offering...for free. If you buy the image, you'll have a file that you can use however you'd like."
    Santajon: "Why would I buy an image...photography is free."

    That conversation doesn't end well for anybody except Santajon.

    Take the free image that's offered or take your own damn picture and use it. The fact that you have to pay to use someone else's product is not a valid complaint.

    --
    Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
  13. Re:photography has been reduced to commodity statu by Spazmania · · Score: 2

    You think the writers and IT staff are pad. That's funny.

    --
    Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
  14. Sounds watertight to me by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    Getty Images will serve the image in an embedded player

    And as we all know, there is not, and has never been, any way to take a copy of something displayed on your screen. NO WAY.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Sounds watertight to me by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

      Just because they've acknowledged it, doesn't mean it's not worth pointing how dumb it seems.

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      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re: Sounds watertight to me by Derkec · · Score: 1

      They point out that anyone bwi wants an image they find in the Getty catalog will find it via image search and steal it. The goal is to offer the embed as a slightly easier way to get the image for free and so have some home of monetizing use from people who will not pay.

      That's reasonable.

    3. Re: Sounds watertight to me by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      I thought (okay, assumed) that everything in the viewable catalogue was watermarked.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  15. Re:That's not "why it doesn't work"....that's you by lemur3 · · Score: 4, Informative

    the problem is that if GETTY actually intends people to use these images in their IFRAME embedded player.. then giving people at least the option of choosing the proper size for the layout of their little blog news site/food blog/whatever will go a long way towards doing that..

    i tried this yesterday and i don't think id ever use it... it was difficult to find embeddable images and once one did find an image that one could embed: you were faced with an image that didnt fit the layout.

  16. Re:photography has been reduced to commodity statu by suutar · · Score: 1

    Eh. Getty probably still pays the photographer. They make it back on (hopefully) licensing fees from folks who see the pictures and want to do more with them and (more likely) ads.

  17. Love this part by hAckz0r · · Score: 3, Funny

    Quote: will continue to “pursue online infringing use as we’ve done traditionally.”

  18. Re:That's not "why it doesn't work"....that's you by santajon · · Score: 1

    Thanks for sticking words in my mouth.

    To start, you can't buy images from Getty. You may only buy licenses to use an image.

    Second, The purpose of the program is to offer images at no cost to non-commercial users. I evaluated for those purposes. For such a program to be successful the images must be useable. I'm suggesting that even non-commercial users will find it difficult to use.

  19. Re:Print Screen by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or better yet, don't take images from Getty without paying for them. Need an image for free? There are plenty of sites you can use such as OpenClipArt.org, Morgue File, or Wikimedia Commons. You can also search Flickr for images with Creative Commons licenses that allow for the type of use you need. If you really, really, REALLY need an image on a stock photo site like Getty Images and no other free alternative will do, then why not actually pay for it?

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  20. Re:Print Screen by mythosaz · · Score: 2

    Yeah! They're not spending all of their time giving me free stuff. Screw them sideways!

  21. Re:That's not "why it doesn't work"....that's you by penguinstorm · · Score: 1

    I'm quite sure that the embedding tool will change/evolve/improve over time based on mutual desire...keeping in mind that you're not paying for it, so your desires are probably a relatively low priority.

    --
    Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
  22. Re:That's not "why it doesn't work"....that's you by penguinstorm · · Score: 1

    No problem man. Anytime.

    To start, your point is true, though ridiculously semantic. If I buy a lifetime exclusive licence for use from Getty, what's the difference between that an "buying" the image. Are you planning on giving Getty your credit card number so that you can have the images on your hard drive and never look at them?

    To the people who are using Getty, they are "buying images." Yes, the purchase comes with conditions.

    Second, the images are usable--they just didn't fit your use case. Have you got any data to back up that people find images so they can only use part of it?

    Yes, there's a use case for that but it's not 100%. For what it's worth, every one of my photos that's been stolen has been stolen in full and reposted without more than being resized...but that's not data either--it's just an example.

    --
    Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
  23. Re:That's not "why it doesn't work"....that's you by Xtifr · · Score: 1

    "The problem is that if the FSF actually intends people to use GNU code in their own creations, then giving people at least the option of relicensing that code in any way that might support their business model will go a long way towards doing that."

    I don't see how what Getty is doing here (use it for free in this way, or pay money to use it some other way) is any different from what many companies are doing with GPL'd code (use it this way for free or pay money to use it some other way). Other than "in this case, it affects ME-E-E!!"

  24. Re:That's not "why it doesn't work"....that's you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Getty: "Here, take these high quality images and use them for free"
    Santajon: "I don't want that image. I want to crop it, and I'd like to apply an artificial aging filter to it so I can look like a douchebag."
    Getty: "That's not the image we're offering...for free. If you buy the image, you'll have a file that you can use however you'd like."
    Santajon: "Why would I buy an image...photography is free."

    That conversation doesn't end well for anybody except Santajon.

    Take the free image that's offered or take your own damn picture and use it. The fact that you have to pay to use someone else's product is not a valid complaint.

    With an embedded player DRMing their use these photo's are not free. Not even monetarily - they are being paid for by an explicit Getty advertising link.

    Unfortunately this is typical marketer dishonesty.

  25. Re:Too bad they don't actually allow their use by imatter · · Score: 1

    is that like?

    gettyPoliticalParty = "Republican"

    or was that supposed to be hardcore?

  26. Public Domain -- Getty commiting fraud by Kirth · · Score: 1

    Saying nothing that a lot of these images are actually in the public domain, which means you can copy them however you want, and are not, and never ever, bound by any of gettys licenses.

    Like this here:
    http://www.gettyimages.ch/deta...
    Whatever getty says is moot, you can copy this over wikimedia commons and tag it "public domain", because replications of two-dimensional works of art always retain the original copyright -- public domain, in this case. there is NO right getty has on this, what-so-ever. Actually, by claiming a copyright, they're committing fraud.

    --
    "The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
  27. Re:That's not "why it doesn't work"....that's you by LordNimon · · Score: 1

    photography is free

    No, it isn't.

    --
    And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
    To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
  28. Re:That's not "why it doesn't work"....that's you by penguinstorm · · Score: 1

    You really should re-read that. Pro-tip while doing that: I run a photography business.

    --
    Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
  29. Re:Too bad they don't actually allow their use by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I anonymously saw getty images on the street corner the other day beating up people exclusively in classes protected by EEO. OMFG they are TOTALLY SUPER DUPER REPURBLICANZ!!!!

  30. Re:That's not "why it doesn't work"....that's you by ceview · · Score: 1

    I just tried this on my site and the main problem I have is that their caption for 'getty images' is really too big. It needs to be just a simple caption one line style. I think it is sufficient to have the image clickthru to getty.