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Getty Images and Shutterstock to Merge

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Re: Getty Images and Shutterstock to Merge

#121

Post by karmasimida »

infecto wrote: post #24
Etheryte wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of businesses that think the same way and every time I see an ad with an image that's clearly AI-generated I steer clear of it. It looks cheap, hits the uncanny valley and is often a good sign of lowest effort possible.

I am in the same boat, photos are here to stay at least in the short to medium term. It will most definitely change as we get better and better models that become photo realistic. I keep seeing the same themed AI generated images in tech blogs and it is tiresome, its just like how meme images were constantly used in writeups a decade ago.

Photo ofc will not be replaced

Photo is an image but also a record. The fact something really did exist and captured is probably more valuable than ever.

So wedding/event photographer really don’t have to worry about lose their job to AI

But in places where photo, as an image just to express abstract idea, without concerning where and when it happened, then that part of value goes to AI already

Re: Getty Images and Shutterstock to Merge

#122

Post by denysvitali »

Gud wrote: post #101
denysvitali wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also make money by chasing down people who use their images without paying a license (fair) by "extortion". Once my co-founder used an image downloaded from Google (bad!) for the company website, GettyImages noticed that and threatened our company to legal actions (C&D) unless we pay the price of the license for the stock image, which magically became "premium" (or whatever their top tier is) for the occasion. T…

Sorry I don’t understand, how are they the bad guy in your scenario? Presumably an online business should follow copyright law?

Yes, they're not the bad guys for making people respect their copyright (there have also been cases where Getty re-licensed public domain images and threatened people in similar ways, but that's a different matter).

Assuming they're the legitimate copyright holders, the shady part is increasing the price of the image on their website to make you pay more than what you should as soon as they notice the infringement - and threatening legal actions if you don't pay the image price

Re: Getty Images and Shutterstock to Merge

#124

Post by denysvitali »

crtasm wrote: post #120
Gud wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“shady”

They seem to be claiming the image in this case got bumped up to the highest price tier only because there was a C&D notice.

Exactly - the price of that particular image switched to a higher tier just because they found a copyright infringement. This is the shady part. Back then I recall reading other threads about people in very similar situations. Unfortunately I'm not able to find those threads anymore, but I've found a Reddit post mentioning that Getty stopped with these shady practices when their CEO changed.

Edit: found something similar to what I mean [1], [2]

[1]: https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/625-De...

[2]: https://ryanhealy.com/getty-images-extortion-letter/

Re: Getty Images and Shutterstock to Merge

#125

Post by dmurray »

denysvitali wrote: post #124
crtasm wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seem to be claiming the image in this case got bumped up to the highest price tier only because there was a C&D notice.

Exactly - the price of that particular image switched to a higher tier just because they found a copyright infringement. This is the shady part. Back then I recall reading other threads about people in very similar situations. Unfortunately I'm not able to find those threads anymore, but I've found a Reddit post mentioning that Getty stopped with these shady practices when their CEO changed. Edit: found something sim…

You could think of it as, it was bumped up to a higher tier because there is evidence that out of all their millions of stock photos, someone chose this one.

Re: Getty Images and Shutterstock to Merge

#126

Post by ChrisNorstrom »

probably_wrong wrote: post #89
paxys wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't innovate your way out of basic economics. The value of a photograph has continued to decline year after year to the point where it is now ~$0. The licensing revenue pie is getting smaller and smaller, and so companies in the space have been shrinking and consolidating to adapt to it. That's all there is to it.

I'd argue that the value of a photograph is not $0. The problem is rather that its actual value is lower than the $200 that Getty wants for a 3MP picture of a hamburger. I've been in projects where we cleared the rights for every picture, and it's always the same: either we blow the budget on two pictures with strong usage restrictions or we replace them all with CC alternatives. Perhaps photographs need their Steam…

TLDR; Just use http://www.unsplash.com for free professional photos.

100% agree. Years ago I signed up for Getty images (royality based) back when they were competing with Fotolia (royalty free) before they were bought by Adobe, and actually clicked through the shopping cart to see how much it would be to license a picture of some nice autumn leaves for a billboard or a calendar. It was an insane amount in the hundreds of dollars, and it was time limited, and only for a limited run (if you used them for example, a calendar), the usage rights were insane. And if you wanted the full resolution it was something like $1,000+ dollars. Our minds were boggled. We honestly legitamately thought Getty images was some kind of money laundering operation. It was cheaper to hire a photographer to get the pictures you want, rather than license them from Getty.

Yes they have some nice rare photographs of political events (wars, earthquake response, important cultural news photos) but they are insane for thinking their entire catalog is deserving of royalties and time/run limitations. The only thing Getty did was convince me that copyright needs to be heavily reformed. (The photographer isn't paying royalties to all the people who made the objects in the photo, yet they're asking for royalities just for taking the photo)

Re: Getty Images and Shutterstock to Merge

#127

Post by denysvitali »

dmurray wrote: post #125
denysvitali wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly - the price of that particular image switched to a higher tier just because they found a copyright infringement. This is the shady part. Back then I recall reading other threads about people in very similar situations. Unfortunately I'm not able to find those threads anymore, but I've found a Reddit post mentioning that Getty stopped with these shady practices when their CEO changed. Edit: found something sim…

You could think of it as, it was bumped up to a higher tier because there is evidence that out of all their millions of stock photos, someone chose this one.

That would make sense if this was done _after_ they estimate the infringement price that they present in the C&D - which AFAIK wasn't the case

Re: Getty Images and Shutterstock to Merge

#128

Post by nojvek »

oldgregg wrote: post #59

Somebody should just scrape all the most popular images from getty then setup a pipeline to regenerate them with flux/controlnet/loras. Charge $10/mo for unlimited licensing or find ancillary way to generate revenue. If most of revenue comes from editorial images start there-- most people won't even care if it's a bit off.

Ghutterstock has plenty of $$$ to make a lawsuit. If the image catalog is close enough, that is a copyright violation.

Re: Getty Images and Shutterstock to Merge

#129

Post by yabatopia »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #126
probably_wrong wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that the value of a photograph is not $0. The problem is rather that its actual value is lower than the $200 that Getty wants for a 3MP picture of a hamburger. I've been in projects where we cleared the rights for every picture, and it's always the same: either we blow the budget on two pictures with strong usage restrictions or we replace them all with CC alternatives. Perhaps photographs need their Steam…

TLDR; Just use http://www.unsplash.com for free professional photos. 100% agree. Years ago I signed up for Getty images (royality based) back when they were competing with Fotolia (royalty free) before they were bought by Adobe, and actually clicked through the shopping cart to see how much it would be to license a picture of some nice autumn leaves for a billboard or a calendar. It was an insane amount in the hundre…

Unsplash is part of Getty Images.

From 2021: Unsplash is being acquired by Getty Images (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26634113)

Re: Getty Images and Shutterstock to Merge

#130

Post by paxys »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #126
probably_wrong wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that the value of a photograph is not $0. The problem is rather that its actual value is lower than the $200 that Getty wants for a 3MP picture of a hamburger. I've been in projects where we cleared the rights for every picture, and it's always the same: either we blow the budget on two pictures with strong usage restrictions or we replace them all with CC alternatives. Perhaps photographs need their Steam…

TLDR; Just use http://www.unsplash.com for free professional photos. 100% agree. Years ago I signed up for Getty images (royality based) back when they were competing with Fotolia (royalty free) before they were bought by Adobe, and actually clicked through the shopping cart to see how much it would be to license a picture of some nice autumn leaves for a billboard or a calendar. It was an insane amount in the hundre…

> It was cheaper to hire a photographer to get the pictures you want, rather than license them from Getty.

And how much time would that take? People who are using these services need the photo NOW, and paying a few hundred dollars for licensing is perfectly acceptable for companies when the alternative is missing a publishing deadline or accidentally infringing on someone's copyright.

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