Getty Images

Getty Images, Inc.
Private
Industry Publishing, media, web design
Genre Stock photography
Predecessor Getty Communications, PhotoDisc
Founded March 14, 1995 (1995-03-14) (as Getty Investments, LLC.)
Founder Mark Getty, Jonathan Klein
Headquarters Seattle, Washington, United States
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 Dawn Airey (CEO)
Products Digital images, audio, video
Services Rights-managed and royalty-free images, audio and video
Owner Carlyle Group
Divisions Getty Productions
Subsidiaries PhotoDisc, Tony Stone Images, Hulton Getty, Jupiterimages
iStockphoto
Website gettyimages.com

Getty Images, Inc. is an American stock photo agency, with headquarters in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is a supplier of stock images for business and consumers with an archive of 80 million still images and illustrations and more than 50,000 hours of stock film footage. It targets three markets—creative professionals (advertising and graphic design), the media (print and online publishing), and corporate (in-house design, marketing and communication departments).

Getty has distribution offices around the world and capitalizes on the Internet and CD-ROM collections for distribution. As Getty has acquired other older photo agencies and archives, it has digitized their collections, enabling online distribution. Getty Images operates a large commercial website that clients use to search and browse for images, purchase usage rights, and download images. Image prices vary according to resolution and type of rights. Cost-per-image is typically around US$500. The company also offers custom photo services for corporate clients.

History

The Getty Images gallery at Eastcastle Street, London.

In 1995, Mark Getty and Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Klein co-founded Getty Investments LLC. Mark Getty is the company's chairman. In September 1997, Getty Communications, as it was called at the time, merged with PhotoDisc, Inc. to form Getty Images. In April 2003, Getty Images entered into a partnership with Agence France-Presse (AFP) to market each other's images.[1]

Getty Images acquired the Michael Ochs Archives in February 2007.[2] The Michael Ochs Archives were described by The New York Times as "the premier source of musician photography in the world".[3]

In 2008, the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman (H&F) acquired Getty Images. In 2012, H&F put Getty up for sale.[4] As of the ensuing sale to Carlyle Group, the company was said to have an archive that included 80 million stills and illustrations.[5]

In 2015, Jonathan Klein became the company's chairman and Dawn Airey was hired as chief executive officer (CEO) of Getty Images.[6][7][8]

Acquisitions

PhotoDisc's online image sales website (2000)
The Hulton Archive website (2001)

Since its formation, Getty Images has pursued an aggressive programme of acquisition, buying up many privately owned agencies that had built up the stock photography industry, from small family-run firms to larger agencies. By 1999 it had acquired one of the largest agencies, Tony Stone Images; the online art seller Art.com; the sports photography agency Allsport; the market leader in the Benelux and Scandinavia: Word View (1996, from Mr. Bert Blokhuis, four offices, for undisclosed sum); journalistic specialists Liaison Agency; Newsmakers the first digital news photo agency; Online USA, a specialist in celebrity shots; and the Hulton Press Library, the former archive of the British photojournalistic magazine Picture Post. The Hulton collection was sold by the BBC to Brian Deutsch in 1988, when it was renamed Hulton Deutsch. In 1996, the Hulton collection was sold on once more, this time purchased by Getty Images and renamed Hulton Getty. With the acquisition of the Hulton library, Getty Images took ownership of the rights to some 15 million photographs from the British press archives dating back to the Nineteenth Century. Hulton Getty also included photographs from the Keystone Collection, as well as images by notable photographers such as Bert Hardy, Bill Brandt, Weegee and Ernst Haas.[9]

Getty has branched out into stock audio, music and sound effects. And also video with the acquisition of EyeWire and Energy Film Library.[10] Getty has partnered with other companies including Slidely for companies and advertisers to use the Getty Images video library of around 2 million videos.[11]

In 2000, Getty acquired one of its main competitors, Archive Photos of New York (a division of The Image Bank), for US$183 million.[10] The Archive Photos library was combined with the Hulton Getty collection to form a new subsidiary, Hulton Archive. Archive Photos had been formed in 1990 from the merger of Pictorial Parade (est. 1935) and Frederick Lewis Stock Photos (est. 1938), two well-established US photo agencies. Their collections included archive images from The New York Times, Metronome and George Eastman House, and works by photographers such as Ruth Orkin, Anacleto Rapping, Deborah Feingold, Murray Garrett, Nat Fein and John Filo.[9]

Further acquisitions followed, with the purchase in 2004 of image.net for US$20 million.[12] On February 9, 2006, the microstock photo website iStockphoto was acquired by Getty Images for US$50 million.[13] In 2007, Getty successfully purchased its largest competitor, MediaVast, for $207 million. The acquisition gave Getty Images control of WireImage (Entertainment, creative, and sports photography), FilmMagic (fashion and red carpet photography), and Contour Photos (portrait and studio photography). Getty Images also acquired other subsidiaries, including Master Delegates, which includes Isifa Image Service in Prague and Laura Ronchi in Italy.[14] In 2008, Getty purchased Redferns Music Picture Library, the music photo library built up by British jazz photographer David Redfern.[15]

On October 23, 2008, Getty Images announced their intention to buy Jupitermedia's online images division, Jupiterimages, for $96 million in cash.[16] The sale went ahead in February 2009; Jupiterimages (including the sites stock.xchng and StockXpert) is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Getty. Jupitermedia, now trading as WebMediaBrands, continues its Internet publishing business, which they didn't sell to Getty Images.[17]

On January 25, 2016, Corbis announced that it had sold its image licensing business, including the Corbis Images, Corbis Motion and Veer libraries and their associated assets, to an affiliate of Visual China Group—Getty's exclusive distributor in China. Concurrently, it was announced that VCG would, after a transition period, license distribution and marketing of the Corbis library outside of China to Getty. The firm will also manage Corbis's physical archives.[18][19][20]

Corporate ownership and management

In February 2008, it was announced that Getty Images would be acquired by the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman in a transaction valued at an estimated US$2.4 billion.[21] On July 2, 2008, Getty Images announced the completion of its acquisition. Getty Images common stock ceased trading on the New York Stock Exchange at the close of the acquisition and was delisted from the NYSE.[22]

In 2012, H&F engaged investment bankers to sell the company. While a price of $4 billion was initially discussed, in August when the private equity firm Carlyle Group emerged as the likely acquirer, the price under consideration was said to be $3.3–3.4 billion. CVC Capital Partners Ltd. was also said to have been bidding but had yet to top Carlyle's price.[4] The sale to Carlyle thereafter was announced at $3.3 billion, with co-founders Getty and Klein and the Getty family all carrying their investments over into the new ownership structure. Getty continues to serve as chairman and Klein as chief executive.[5]

In September 2018, the Getty family announced it would acquire majority stake in the company from Carlyle Group.[23]

An image available at Getty Images, displaying a watermark with "Getty Images", the author's name, and a file-ID number. This watermark exists on all images on Getty Images when previewing the images, to prevent copyright infringement.

Beginning in 2008, Getty Images has created controversy for its methods of pursuing copyright enforcement on behalf of its photographers. Rather than pursue a policy of sending "cease and desist" notices, Getty typically mails a demand letter that claims substantial monetary damages from owners of websites it believes infringed on their photographers' copyrights. Getty commonly tries to intimidate website owners by sending collection agents, even though a demand letter does not create a debt.[24]

One photographer noted, "Courts don't like to be used as a means of extortion." In one case, Getty sent a church in Lichfield, Staffordshire, a £6,000 bill for photographs it used on its website, apparently placed there by a church volunteer. In this case, the church offered to pay Getty what it thought was a reasonable amount. The diocese's communications director said:

Getty was not playing ball or following the normal litigation or dispute resolution procedures and [I advised the church] to ignore them. We don't deal with bullies; we deal with legal threats appropriately. I told [Getty] by letter that's what [the church was] doing, that we were not going to play, and didn't hear any more.[24]

The Guardian described other instances in which Getty or other stock photo businesses dropped a claim when a website owner refused to pay and hired a lawyer. A law firm was quoted as saying: "Once we get involved generally Getty does back off."[24]

In 2009, Oscar Michelen, a New York attorney who focuses on such damages claims, said: "The damages they're requesting aren't equal to the copyright infringement," and "there's no law that says definitively what images are worth in the digital age."[25] He called Getty's effort to assess four-figure fines "a legalized form of extortion."[25]

In an effort to combat online copyright infringement, in March 2014 Getty Images made over 35 million images available free for non-commercial online use via embedding with attribution and a link back to the Getty Images website.[26][27] According to Getty Images executive Craig Peters, "The principle is to turn what's infringing use with good intentions, turning that into something that's valid licensed use with some benefits going back to the photographer".[28]

In 2016, Getty Images entered a lawsuit with Google, taking issue with the way the search giant handled their images scraping methods. Two years later in 2018, Google removed the "View Image" button from their image search results, this led to outrage from users around the world, and a number of articles referencing this lawsuit. The button was removed as part of a settlement Google made with Getty Images.[29]

In 2009, Car-Freshner Corp. filed a lawsuit against Getty Images in U.S. Federal Court, Northern District New York (Case 7:09-cv-01252-GTS -GHL).[30] Car-Freshner claimed that Getty Images had in its catalog photos that included the famous "tree-shaped" trademarked car fresheners. In 2011, Getty Images attempted to have the case dismissed, but its motion was denied.[31] In 2012, Getty Images agreed to settle by paying $100,000 to Car-Freshener Corp., but admitted no wrongdoing.[32]

In September 2013, Avril Nolan brought a $450,000 suit against Getty Images. Nolan alleged that Getty Images improperly let her image be used in advertisements that depicted her as HIV-positive. She claimed the ad's depiction of her as HIV-positive (she is not) hurt her personal and professional relationships and caused her emotional distress.[33][34] In March 2014 a judge ruled the lawsuit will be taken to court rather than dismissed.[35] Getty Images settled with Nolan in January 2015.[36]

In November 2013, Getty and Agence France-Presse were ordered to pay $1.2 million compensation to freelance photojournalist Daniel Morel for using his images posted on Twitter related to the 2010 Haiti earthquake without his permission, in violation of copyright and Twitter's terms of service.[37][38]

In July 2016, Getty was sued, unsuccessfully, for over $1 billion by Carol Highsmith, an American photographer notable for donating her 100,000+ image collection, royalty-free, to the Library of Congress, when Highsmith found that Getty has been selling unauthorized licenses of her work (an instance of copyfraud).[39][40] Carol Highsmith found out about this when she received a letter from a law firm representing Getty demanding $120 for displaying her pictures on a personal website of hers.[41]

Prestige Grant

The Getty Images Prestige Grant is awarded to two commercial photographers to realise a dream project, awarding them USD$15,000 and $7,500 respectively. The first recipients, in 2015, were Lisa Barnard and Andy Lo Po.[42][43]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Getty Images and Agence France-Presse (AFP) Enter Into Partnership to Increase Breadth, Depth, Reach and Quality" (Press release). Getty Images. April 1, 2003. Archived from the original on October 24, 2008. Retrieved November 23, 2008.
  2. ↑ "Getty Images Acquires the Michael Ochs Archives". Getty Images. February 27, 2007. Archived from the original on July 11, 2011. Retrieved May 11, 2010.
  3. ↑ Schwarz, Alan (May 28, 2006). "They Had Faces Then: An Archive Keeps Stars Ever Young". The New York Times. Retrieved May 11, 2010.
  4. 1 2 Alesci, Cristina, and Jeffrey McCracken, "Carlyle Group Said to Be Leading Bidder for Getty Images" Archived August 16, 2012, at the Wayback Machine., Bloomberg, August 14, 2012. Retrieved August 14, 2012.
  5. 1 2 "Carlyle in $3.3 Billion Deal for Getty Images", New York Times Dealbook, August 15, 2012. Retrieved August 15, 2012.
  6. ↑ "Dawn Airey takes over from Jonathan Klein as Getty Images boss". Financial Times. (Subscription required (help)).
  7. ↑ Jasper Jackson. "Dawn Airey joins Getty Images as CEO". the Guardian.
  8. ↑ "Getty Images appoints Dawn Airey as Chief Executive Officer" (Press release). Getty Images Press Room.
  9. 1 2 "About Hulton Archive". Hulton Archive. 2001. Archived from the original on October 21, 2001. Retrieved August 14, 2009. (archived on the Web Archive)
  10. 1 2 Gross, Larry P.; Katz, John Stuart; Ruby, Jay (2003). Image ethics in the digital age. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-3824-6.
  11. ↑ "New Promo Feature from Slidely Aims to Make Every Marketer Into a Video Creator: But Does it Succeed?". smallbiztrends.com. Retrieved May 11, 2017.
  12. ↑ "About image.net".
  13. ↑ "Getty Images Buys iStockPhoto.com For $50 Million". abouttheimage.com. Archived from the original on January 27, 2009.
  14. ↑ "Getty Images Acquires Its Italian Master Delegate, Laura Ronchi, S.p.A." Archived from the original on October 24, 2008.
  15. ↑ "David Redfern obituary". telegraph.co.uk. October 25, 2014. Retrieved April 14, 2018.
  16. ↑ D'Souza, Savio (October 23, 2008). "Jupitermedia to sell online image unit to Getty". Reuters. Retrieved August 14, 2009.
  17. ↑ "Jupitermedia Announces Completion Of Sale Of Jupiterimages To Getty Images and Change Of Jupitermedia Name to WebMediaBrands". February 23, 2009. Archived from the original on February 28, 2009. Retrieved August 13, 2009.
  18. ↑ "Bill Gates' Corbis Images Sold to Visual China Group". Variety. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
  19. ↑ "The Decade-Long Image Licensing War Is Suddenly Over". Time. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
  20. ↑ Donald R. Winslow (January 22, 2016). "Corbis Sold To Getty's China-Based Investment Group". National Press Photographers Association. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
  21. ↑ "Getty Images Press Release" (Press release). February 25, 2008. Archived from the original on February 29, 2008.
  22. ↑ "Getty Images Announces Completion of Acquisition by Hellman & Friedman" (Press release). July 2, 2008. Archived from the original on June 30, 2011. Retrieved October 9, 2010.
  23. ↑ "Getty family to buy majority stake in Getty Images from Carlyle". Reuters. September 4, 2018. Retrieved September 4, 2018.
  24. 1 2 3 Grossman, Wendy, "Is a picture really worth £1,000?", The Guardian, November 27, 2008. Retrieved November 2011.
  25. 1 2 Lazarus, David (September 13, 2009). "Controlling illegal use of copyrighted material on the Web - Los Angeles Times". Articles.latimes.com. Retrieved September 12, 2013.
  26. ↑ Laurent, Olivier (March 5, 2014). "Getty Images makes 35 million images free in fight against copyright infringement". British Journal of Photography. Archived from the original on March 6, 2014. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
  27. ↑ Brustein, Joshua (March 6, 2014). "Since It Can't Sue Us All, Getty Images Embraces Embedded Photos". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved March 7, 2014.
  28. ↑ Brandom, Russell (March 5, 2014). "The world's largest photo service just made its pictures free to use". The Verge. Retrieved March 7, 2014.
  29. ↑ Internet Rages After Google Removes "View Image" Button, Ars Technica
  30. ↑ "No. 7:09-CV-1252 (GTS/GHL)". Google Scholar. United States District Court, N.D. New York. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  31. ↑ Michelen, Oscar (October 4, 2011). "Makers of Pine-Tree Deodorizers Allowed to Proceed With Lawsuit Against Getty Images". Courtroomstrategy.com.
  32. ↑ Michelen, Oscar (August 28, 2012). "Getty Images Pays $100K to Settle Car-Freshner Suit". Courtroomstrategy.com.
  33. ↑ Marsh, Julia. "Model sues after HIV-positive ad". New York Post.
  34. ↑ Ryan, Órla (September 20, 2013). "Greenpoint Model Tired of Telling Dates She's HIV Free Sues Getty". The New York Observer. Retrieved April 22, 2014.
  35. ↑ Marsh, Julia (March 10, 2014). "Model wins round in HIV-ad lawsuit". New York Post. Retrieved April 22, 2014.
  36. ↑ Butler, Office of Joy R. "More Lessons on How Not to Use Stock Images. Improper Use of Stock Image in HIV Ad Results in Successful Lawsuits against Getty Images and Advertiser". Lexology. February 8, 2016. Retrieved July 13, 2016.
  37. ↑ Ax, Joseph (November 22, 2013). "Photographer wins $1.2 million from companies that took pictures off Twitter". Reuters. Retrieved November 25, 2013.
  38. ↑ Laurent, Olivier (November 24, 2013). "Getty Images disappointed at $1.2m Morel verdict". British Journal of Photography. Incisive Media. Archived from the original on November 26, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.
  39. ↑ Hiltzik, Michael. "Photographer sues Getty Images for $1 billion after she's billed for her own photo". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 3, 2016.
  40. ↑ Farivar, Cyrus (July 28, 2016). "Photographer sues Getty Images for selling photos she donated to public". Ars Technica. Retrieved July 28, 2016.
  41. ↑ Hiltzik, Michael. "Getty Images will bill you thousands to use a photo that belongs to the public. Is that legal?". LA Times. Retrieved August 2, 2016.
  42. ↑ "Getty Images Creative Grants 2015". Getty Images. Retrieved October 8, 2015.
  43. ↑ "Getty Images announces recipients of new Prestige Grant". Getty Images. October 7, 2015. Retrieved October 8, 2015.
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