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Unsplash is being acquired by Getty Images

unsplash.com

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Re: Unsplash is being acquired by Getty Images

#71

Post by dbrgn »

This reminds me of 500px. I used to be a huge fan of 500px. It was the most beautiful photography site on the internet, designed with attention to every tiny detail. It allowed you to share your photos under a CC license, presented them beautifully and had fantastic curated feeds with photos by fantastic photographers.

In 2018 they were acquired by an investor company and partnered exclusively with Getty. As a contributor, you were now pushed to "earn money with your pictures", CC licenses were discouraged and (I think) eventually removed. The site stopped getting optimized for aesthetics, it was now getting optimized for selling stock photos. I deleted all my photos and left.

I hope this doesn't happen to Unsplash. But I'm not optimistic.

Re: Unsplash is being acquired by Getty Images

#72

Post by onli »

woah wrote: post #63
onli wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creative Commons caused many issues in countries like Germany, with photographers publishing under CC with attribution clause, then hunting for sites using photos without or with not 100% correct attribution (in illegal pro-profit cooperations with lawyers) and suing the site owners for thousands of dollars. It really would have to be CC0, but even mentioning CC will raise a red flag for many now.

What was illegal about what they were doing?

The shared for-profit part of the scheme. It's one thing to hire a lawyer to get a license respected, it's another to institute to what amounts to a fraud scheme: Publish images with as hidden license requirements as possible, "hire" a lawyer for free with a profit sharing agreement, then sue who you can. That profit sharing agreement is illegal here, but hard to prove, and the Abmahnindustrie is actively protected by politicians (many of which are lawyers, pure coincidence of course).

Edit: When they send in that notice (die Abmahnung) they will ask for money for incurred costs. Since they did not pay anything in advance - the lawyer worked for free - there were no costs. That's not legal here.

Re: Unsplash is being acquired by Getty Images

#74

Post by haxiomic »

My main association with Getty is their 'copyfraud' practises where they claim public domain images (NASA, Library of Congress etc) as their own and sell licenses[0]. They're also well known for aggressive acquisitions[1]. Perhaps this a good time to create a mirror

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getty_Images#Claiming_copyrigh...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getty_Images#Acquisitions

Re: Unsplash is being acquired by Getty Images

#75

Post by StavrosK »

dbrgn wrote: post #71

This reminds me of 500px. I used to be a huge fan of 500px. It was the most beautiful photography site on the internet, designed with attention to every tiny detail. It allowed you to share your photos under a CC license, presented them beautifully and had fantastic curated feeds with photos by fantastic photographers. In 2018 they were acquired by an investor company and partnered exclusively with Getty. As a contri…

Oh man, 500px used to be amazing. The photos were just beautiful. As you say, it died at some point (the quality started declining and they pushed some user-hostile stuff) and I never went back.

Re: Unsplash is being acquired by Getty Images

#76

Post by onli »

joshuaissac wrote: post #67
onli wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creative Commons caused many issues in countries like Germany, with photographers publishing under CC with attribution clause, then hunting for sites using photos without or with not 100% correct attribution (in illegal pro-profit cooperations with lawyers) and suing the site owners for thousands of dollars. It really would have to be CC0, but even mentioning CC will raise a red flag for many now.

> hunting for sites using photos without or with not 100% correct attribution I do not see what is wrong about this part (other than the illegal(?) nexus with lawyers). CC licences still have to be complied with (or the user can contact the copyright holder for an alternative licence). GPL infringers have been taken to court as well, and a legal, for-profit litigation initiative might be a good incentive that encoura…

There are many ways to go about this. Using the one that causes monetary harm and disincentives everyone to even consider hosting a site is not the ethical option to pick, but it's the one that is profitable in the short term. It's not like they couldn't just ask first to respect the license, but this isn't about respecting the license, it's about generating an income.

Re: Unsplash is being acquired by Getty Images

#77

Post by rchaud »

preommr wrote: post #54

Potentially unpopular opinion: Good. I am tired of people just putting large images into their websites where the main image is barely relevant to the rest of the page. It was sloppy and lazy, like modern day clip art. And if someone really wants images, there are paid services like envato that are at least somewhat sustainable. These solutions are really affordable now and they've got very decent licensing terms.

This acquisition isn't going to change that. Getty isn't going to slap a watermark on every Unsplash image overnight.

And even if they do, people will continue using meaningless images as thumbnails for their Medium posts from some other source like Pexels.

Re: Unsplash is being acquired by Getty Images

#79

Post by teryyy »

dbrgn wrote: post #71

This reminds me of 500px. I used to be a huge fan of 500px. It was the most beautiful photography site on the internet, designed with attention to every tiny detail. It allowed you to share your photos under a CC license, presented them beautifully and had fantastic curated feeds with photos by fantastic photographers. In 2018 they were acquired by an investor company and partnered exclusively with Getty. As a contri…

https://www.pexels.com/ is another similar site, owned by Canva which seems to have kept its quality through the years.
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