Yahoo's Flickr site has deepened its relationship with photo-licensing power Getty Images so photographers can nominate their own photos for inclusion in Getty's Flickr Collection.
Previously, Getty decided which images it believed were commercially viable, and since the program launched in July 2008, it has put together a collection of more than 60,000 commercial images. Now photographers, instead of just being able to indicate that they're willing to be contacted by Getty, can actively submit a portfolio of images.
"A submission should include exactly 10 images that represent what you consider to be the best of your work. The Getty Images creative team will evaluate submissions based on style, subject matter, and technical skill," Andy Saunders, Getty's vice president of creative imagery, said in a statement. "If some or all of the photos--or other images from your photostream--are selected for the Flickr Collection on Getty Images, you will receive an invitation via FlickrMail. This invitation will clearly show Getty Images' initial selection of images and introduce the enrollment process."
The partnership is an interesting confluence between the old-school world of stock photography and the nouveau era of digital photography and the Internet. With digital SLRs and the Internet, high-quality photos are easier to come by, leading to the arrival of several "microstock" companies that sell photos on a royalty-free and relatively inexpensive basis. It's hurt professional stock photographers, but it's provided extra income to any number of enthusiasts and amateurs.
Flickr never launched its own microstock site, despite an abundance of enthusiasts contributing photos, but the Getty partnership does mix a commercial ingredient into the Yahoo photo-sharing site's operations.
The easy availability of photos at Flickr and other sites can lead to copyright infringement troubles. On Tuesday, Toyota USA apologized for using Flickr photos without permission:
Toyota apologizes for pulling images from Flickr without photographer permission. Images from a handful of photographers appeared on a Toyota site for five days. We're working quickly to reach out to the individual photographers involved. Until then, the images have been removed, and corrections have been made to the process of pulling images from Flickr.
So it's clear that some Flickr photos have business value, whether for their professional quality or their everyman snapshot flavor.
Getty and Flickr won't disclose any details about their business relationship, but here's what Flickr has to say about how the finances work for photographers:
Flickr has a business relationship with Getty Images, though we've never publicly discussed the specifics of the deal. Regarding the photographers, Getty Images will be the exclusive distributor of select Flickr members' content, and in turn, Getty Images will facilitate the license of such photography and will pay the royalties directly to the members. This will be a direct relationship between Getty Images and each Flickr contributor.
Flickr photographers will be asked to sign a Getty Images contributor contract, if they agree to have their images licensed for commercial use, that will specify rates for rights-managed and royalty-free royalties, as applicable. Rates for royalty-free imagery are 20 percent; rates for rights-managed (images) are 30 percent. These are directly in line with royalty rates that (Getty's) existing contributors receive.
Bruce Livingstone, founder and leader of microstock pioneer iStockphoto, is leaving the company he sold to Getty Images three years ago.
iStockphoto founder and former CEO Bruce Livingstone
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)Livingstone, who launched the low-cost photo-licensing company nine years ago, said he's leaving of his own volition, according to a forum posting from iStock COO Kelly Thompson, who is taking over Livingstone's duties.
"This is my last communication as CEO of iStockphoto and SVP Consumer at Getty Images. It's been a difficult decision, but it's the right moment to move on," Livingstone said. "I need more time with my family, and time to figure out what I'm going to do next. Anybody who knows me, knows I'm a bit of a workaholic. So I'm finally going to make some time for myself and the people in my life."
Thompson will lead iStockphoto and report directly to Getty CEO Jonathan Klein, the company said. iStockphoto got its start licensing royalty-free images for relatively low prices, and over the years expanded into video, Flash animations, illustrations, and, most recently, audio.
Livingstone's departure was unrelated to 110 layoffs at Getty Images reported last week by Photo District News, the company said.
"Bruce's departure was a personal decision and has been planned for some time, with a potential April 1 announcement date, which is within the wry character of Bruce," Thompson said in a statement to CNET News. "But due to the inherent difficulty in keeping something like this contained, we felt it prudent to move the announcement up."
Livingstone said he'll continue with some involvement at iStockphoto. "Don't think for a minute that I'm going away, though. I'm still a photographer after all, and I'll finally have time to take pictures now," he said in the forum posting.
Getty Images' Flickr collection is now live.
(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)Getty Images, one of the stock photography powerhouses, has switched on a program by which selected Flickr photographers can license their images to paying customers.
In earlier days of the microstock business, in which photographers license images over the Internet for relatively low prices through sites including Getty's iStockphoto, there was speculation Flickr might jump into the market. After all, there's plenty of good material, and it's often already tagged for easier categorization.
Instead, though, Flickr and Getty announced a partnership in which Getty taps Flickr photographers it believes have potential to sell their photos through Getty. Invitations started going out in January, and now the Getty's Flickr collection is live, Yahoo announced on its blog Tuesday.
One complication, though: many photographers at Flickr offer their images under Creative Commons licenses that permit copying and redistribution of the photos.
According to the Flickr help section on the Getty program, Yahoo switches Creative Commons-licensed photos to all rights reserved if they're submitted to Getty:
Can I sell my Creative Commons-licensed content?
There is a chance one of your Creative Commons-licensed photos may catch the eye of a perceptive Getty Images editor. You are welcome to upload these photos into the Flickr collection on Getty Images, but you are contractually obliged to reserve all rights to sale for your work sold via Getty Images. If you proceed with your submission, switching your license to All Rights Reserved (on Flickr) will happen automatically.
If you're not cool with that, that's totally cool. It just means that particular photo will need to stay out of the Flickr collection on Getty Images.
Ben Metcalfe launched a discussion of the Creative Commons issue, pointing out that Creative Commons licenses are perpetual.
In response, a Getty Images representative said, "We would never expect anyone to revoke a license. We know that your image is being used with your permission by those who licensed it through CC (Creative Commons), which is why we are placing CC images we choose in RF (royalty-free licensing) only. We couldn't place it in RM (rights-managed) because rights management would not be possible. We came to this so as not to exclude inviting CC images."
The partnership between Flickr and Getty Images is finally moving forward. Early Wednesday the Yahoo-owned photo-sharing service announced that invitations from Getty have been going out in high numbers. Some members who have had one or more of their images chosen to be on Getty's sale site could have gotten notice as early as last week.
Originally announced in July, the special Flickr-branded Getty collection will be launching in early March. It's the first official move by Flickr where users can sell their images, although all the purchasing and organization will be done on Getty's end. In the interim Getty has set up a Flickr group where those selected can discuss licensing and rights issues if there are any.
Unlike microstock services such as iStockPhoto, Shutterstock, and Fotolia, the Getty/Flickr partnership will be royalty-free and rights-managed only. It's also going to continue to be invite-only, whereas the other sites allow user submissions.
Flickr on Tuesday entered a partnership with Getty Images to offer its users a way to potentially make money off their photography.
The Yahoo-owned photo-hosting community will be a new resource for Getty, which can now contact Flickr members directly through the site and ask them if they want to share one or more of their images for use in a special Flickr-branded Getty collection.
Flickr members interested in getting their images featured in the special Getty gallery will have to simply wait to be contacted. Otherwise, Getty and Flickr are encouraging aspiring photographers to post their content on the Getty-owned iStockphoto, which also happens to have been a hotbed for Flickr photos in the past.
Flickr-hosted images that have been chosen to be included in the new collection will get a special link to the Getty page where they can purchase a license to use the shot.
In order to get paid and allow their images to be used, Flickr members must sign a Getty Images contributor contract, which stipulates that the photographer is the owner, and has any necessary model releases and originals. It also outlines the various rates based on size and intended commercial usage.
Those rates, not yet available, are likely to follow some of Getty's standard rates. As part of the deal, the only transaction is being shared directly between the photographer and Getty, meaning Yahoo will not be getting a share of that fee. According to Yahoo's rep, "Getty and Flickr have a separate business relationship."
The move is a special deal for Flickr, which currently does not allow for commercial transactions on the site outside of using partners for services such as photo printing. It's long been expected that Flickr would get around to implementing a system like this, if only to take advantage of the size of its collection, which averages thousands of user uploads every minute.
Update: Changes have been made to this article since it first posted regarding the link to the Getty purchase pages on Flickr as well as the nature of the business partnership between Getty Images and Yahoo.
Getty Images, one of the biggest stock-photo houses, has launched a music licensing business designed to give broadcasters, movie makers and advertisers quick access to songs.
The commercial service was built with the help of Pump Audio, which Getty acquired in June. The music unit is only the start for Getty, which plans to expand the kind of content it offers.
The service will start with 20,000 original tracks by independent artists, the company said in a statement Monday. That number is tiny when compared with music libraries offered by consumer services.
For example, iTunes now boasts more than 6 million songs. Even tiny SpiralFrog, which launched its music site last month with songs from only one of the four major record labels, has about 800,000 songs.
Getty said in a statement that the company intends to partner with major record labels and publishers.
Getty Images, which made a name for itself as a stock photography clearinghouse, announced Wednesday it has purchased Pump Audio, which licenses independent music to advertising and media clients. The price of the acquisition, according to a release from Getty, was $42 million.
This is the most recent in a series of moves on Getty's part to expand beyond photography and into the digital media sector. Last month, it launched a new division in the company to license video footage and other multimedia content, and over the past few months has chalked up a string of acquisitions, from amateur photography site Scoopt to smaller competitors . The Pump Audio buy, however, marks Getty's first foray into music licensing.
For Pump Audio, which made a splash at last year's OnHollywood conference, the acquisition means that the start-up now has the keys to unlock a much broader sphere of influence. "The combination with Getty Images will give many more creative customers access to great original music," said Steve Ellis, the company's founder and CEO, "and at the same time will provide our contributing artists access to a huge, global marketplace."
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Flickr member Hamad Darwish is now a part of computing history, with two of his photographs included in Windows Vista. Usually Microsoft doesn't approach people with (we're assuming) large checks unless they're vying for a name or settling a lawsuit, but Darwish's work wowed Microsoft so much they hired him for a photo shoot.
Apparently there are three more images from Flickr users shipping with Vista, along with a few from Microsoft employees, too.
This is a cool use of services like Flickr. While Corbis, iStockPhoto, and Getty Images are all a hotbed for finding good wallpaper material, Flickr and other photo hosting services are a great place to find budding photographers who likely will be eager to have their work showcased and purchased.
[Found on Flickr blog]
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