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

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."

Comments

Embedded player

[OptimalCynic]

Getty Images will serve the image in an embedded player

Yuck...

Re:Embedded player

[Dan East]

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

Fixed the summary for you.

Creative Commons exists for this kind of thing

[nurhussein]

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.

Re:Creative Commons exists for this kind of thing

[smooth wombat]

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.

Photographers?

[Mrs. Grundy]

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

[santajon]

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.

That's not "why it doesn't work"....that's you wan

[penguinstorm]

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.

Re:That's not "why it doesn't work"....that's you

[lemur3]

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.

Re:Print Screen

[Jason Levine]

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?