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500px Closes Its Photo Marketplace (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the end-of-the-line dept.

Photo platform 500px has decided to close its in-house Marketplace that lets users buy and sell photos. According to Engadget, the service "will now rely on moving photos through Getty Images in most of the world as well as VCG (which acquired 500px in February) in China." From the report: Users no longer have the option to upload photos under a Creative Commons license that would let buyers remix photos or otherwise reuse them. There's no way to migrate, download or even search for these images. You won't have another CC-style license in its place, either. At best, you'll have a royalty-free 500px License that distributes pictures through either Getty or VCG. This isn't strictly a ploy to make photographers charge money, though. 500px informed The Verge that there weren't many people using CC images, many of which had outdated licenses. There were bugs searching for them, too.

24 comments

  1. So basically what this means is.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    So basically what this means is 500px is no longer offering free storage of pictures for people to download royalty free. Can't really blame them as hosting and storage of large pictures takes up a lot of storage space and bandwidth and if the host isn't making money from it theyre not going to be able to operate for long.

    1. Re:So basically what this means is.... by jrumney · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They are no longer a startup aiming for eyeballs to increase their "valuation". They were bought, and now they need to figure out how to turn a profit.

    2. Re:So basically what this means is.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So whats the real story to this then other than a public annoucement we're losing this free service.

      If the old 500px was economically unviable then this was going to happen anyway.
      If the old 500px was economically viable then why can't anyone start up a new one?

    3. Re:So basically what this means is.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      new owner is chinese and has long-standing ties to getty in that country. which is kinda funny because china, typically, has very little regard to foreign copyright and intellectual property and will just steal your image (watermark included, even!) to use in or on whatever the fuck they want.

  2. "Outdated" Licenses? by Mathinker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I understand that licenses come in various versions, but really, calling a license "outdated" seems to me to be a loaded term. Unless some kind of legislative change somehow made offering the old licenses illegal, or changed the interpretation of their terms, they are still perfectly as valid as they were when they were adopted.

    It's just PR-speak to sugarcoat/whitewash a management decision. What bugs me more than usual here, though, is the collateral damage from the mis-education of the public, who in general already don't understand IP-related stuff. (Imagining Linus Torvalds' reaction to receiving an email requesting that he issues a GPLv3 license for the kernel "because the old license is outdated and invalid".)

  3. Shoot More Journalists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's a blatant troll, like the headlies, er, um, headlines. Fook the "news".

  4. Legal Extortion from Getty Images by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It appears they are selling out to Getty, which is a despicable company. Their business model is based on "legal" extortion of people and businesses. Stay away from these people.

    https://www.extortionletterinfo.com/

    1. Re:Legal Extortion from Getty Images by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not only a despicable company, but a despicable Family, to whom Art Theft, especially Nazi Art Theft starting with convicted thief J. Paul Getty, proved especially profitable. BTW, Alamy and such aren't much better, hoovering the Internet for anything that they can slap their scary Watermarks on. (Watermarks under International Copyright Laws are worthless; only Copyrights and Trademarks carry any provenance. Registered ones even moreso.)
      Getty even goes after people for publishing their own work; (Highsmith v Getty et al). They have the Lawyers, and they consistently get away with it.
      It might surprise people just who was ultimately responsible for situations such as this:
      Victor Hugo, the prick behind the Berne Convention.
      "Create a system of literary property, but at the same time, create the public domain! Let us go further. Let us expand the idea. The law could give to all Publishers the right to publish any book after the death of the author, the only requirement would be to pay the direct heirs a very low fee, which in no case would exceed five or ten percent of the net profit."
      Hugo, once Royalist, went full-tilt crazy Libertarian. Copy Rights and the Public Domain should belong to the Publishers only, for eternity.
      But here's a fun bit: After writing some of this up elsewhere, I included three images of a Public Domain Postcard, dated Jun 1, 1885. It's the Funeral of Victor Hugo, and they are Watermarked Getty, Alamy, and Lookandlearn respectively.
      Hugo's Death has been claimed by others.

  5. You know Wikipedia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Many people do not know there is an equivalent site.... But for images, some of surprisingly good quality https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
    The search interface kinda sucks

  6. Re: Always "someone else" with you people. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How about you? Heaven forbid anyone try to interpret / translate the bullshit headline or editorial summary without being obligated to outlay millions of dollars of capital and IP licensing fees.

  7. Sellout to Getty hmm? by nitehawk214 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I am concerned that I am going to get extortion letters from Getty for my own images that I have on 500px. Not that I am a professional photographer or that anyone would actually pay for my photos. But Getty doesn't seem to give a shit about stomping all over little people that it. The principal of not being able to do what I want with something I own is infuriating enough.

    https://www.extortionletterinf...

    If I simply delete them all, then there is no remaining evidence online that the pictures were ever mine, giving Getty the power to sell them at will.

    At least I wasn't stupid enough to share my full resolution raws with 500px. Is having those at least defense in court that I am the actual owner of a given image?

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    1. Re:Sellout to Getty hmm? by coofercat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      My information is second hand, but I'm told about 10 years ago that Getty spent a load of money buying up "all" of the photo libraries around the world and then renegotiating the contracts they had with photographers. Ultimately, it meant that photographers got paid a pittance for their images, and guess what... Getty did nicely out of the deal. It used to be that one good picture could pay for a week or two week's trip to wherever. Under Getty, you'd need several top-sellers to achieve the same sort of return.

      In response, a few new libraries sprang up. They're naturally smaller than what Getty can deliver, but they're considerably more personalised to their customers, have some very dedicated and skilled photographers and pass on more of the sale price to the people doing the actual work. As a rule of thumb, you won't get as much accepted, you won't sell as much, but you'll get a decent return.

      In short - Getty are 'monopolists' in photography, muscling the industry to their own ends. Be very careful of that before getting into bed with them in any way.

    2. Re:Sellout to Getty hmm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Getty is pretty evil on the other end too. I would never be a customer of Getty or any of their sub-brands.

    3. Re:Sellout to Getty hmm? by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      My information is second hand, but I'm told about 10 years ago that Getty spent a load of money buying up "all" of the photo libraries around the world and then renegotiating the contracts they had with photographers. Ultimately, it meant that photographers got paid a pittance for their images, and guess what... Getty did nicely out of the deal. It used to be that one good picture could pay for a week or two week's trip to wherever. Under Getty, you'd need several top-sellers to achieve the same sort of return.

       
      It's a... wee bit more complicated than that. Getty is also taking advantage of the fact that good digital photography has gotten cheap, and that a huge number of people have leapt into the business of photography. The resulting race to the bottom was inevitable. I give and grant that Getty doesn't play nice, but they're taking advantage of pre-existing conditions rather than creating them.

    4. Re:Sellout to Getty hmm? by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      The Walmart strategy of brand dominance.

      Prices so cheap your competitors either sell to you or go out of business. And with the advent of tons of digital cameras, labor is so cheap that professionals get priced out of the business entirely.

      Though the first half of that is obviously more serious than the second one.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    5. Re:Sellout to Getty hmm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Is having those at least defense in court that I am the actual owner of a given image?

      Yes.

      If you haven't already and assuming your camera supports the following:
          - Save your photos as RAW files since these are directly traceable to the camera used to capture the image.
          - Register your equipment with the manufacturer.
          - Add a copyright tag to your images in camera. Many cameras can be configured to do so automatically. Make sure that the copyright tag is included in the metadata for all images you post on the net.
      - Create an off-line copy of your images and stores them in a safe place.

      The above won't stop you from being sued, but could help your attorney if you are sued.

      Note, I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advise, use this information at your own risk.
      Not liable for any damages, or injuries related to the use of this information.

    6. Re:Sellout to Getty hmm? by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      One of the great things about storage being so dirt cheap is there is no reason to delete a raw file ever.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  8. Nope, not me, and here's why. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm not interested in this particular niche interest. I have other interests, and guess what? I do help out to make the things I want done, happen. So there.

    1. Re:Nope, not me, and here's why. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then be quiet then if youre not interested, other people are and they have the right to ask questions for discussion.