Canuckistan,
This is a very important find. Thank you for sharing. My head nearly exploded when I read the article. I have many opinions, some that go beyond the scope of the article but extremely relevant to the issues at hand.
I find it interesting that there is not one user comment that informs or indicates that the Verge readership has any clue of Getty Images' smelly and moldy armpit operation called the extortion letter campaign. Getty has only reluctantly acknowledged the program exists only if it is called out on it but it is largely secretive and out of the PR light.
Getty reminds me of the big dinosaur publishing companies sitting in their ivory towers with huge overhead. Their employess better get ready to move into industrial warehouses because their days of sitting in the ivory towers paying exorbitant commercial rents will soon be over.
Photographers like writers/authors are going to have to get off their asses and start learning "the business" and become entrepreneurial if they want to continue being in "the business" vs. being a hobbyist. Depending on Getty Image and their ilk is going to be suicide for most photographers because most of the sales earned will go to keeping Getty's rent paid, lights on, and Klein's minions on payroll. There will be very little left, if any, going to the photographer.
And like everyone else here, I feel Getty cannot be trusted. They have not earned their trust. They have lived on the cachet of their name from 10-20 years ago. It is clear that the Getty name means very little now and very few care about them. And they have done very little to earn any fans. In fact, they have gone out of their way to literally create enemies by the thousands each and every year.
Getty and Timmy wonder why ELI has so much influence. That is because we publicly make a stand against them with authority and credibility. Getty has successfully seeded the Internet population with haters, enemies, and people who will go out of their way to NOT be their customer. From a karma point of view, they have thousands of people looking to see them put out of business.
Klein and their equity partners don't really care about photography anymore. It is just a money machine for them because there is nowhere to go if Getty goes out of business. Most of the upper management will be unemployable.
Ironically, people who truly care about photography and the business will be outsiders. I hate to admit it but I honestly do believe people like Carolyn Wright of Photo Attorney do care but certainly not Masterfile that she now represents. The problem with Carolyn is she leads with her lawyer hat vs. being innovative and taking what she knows with law and business and doing something radically different.
Anyhow, I have to cut this post short but I will be back to revisit.
I buried this in my other thread but it's big enough news for its own post:
The world's largest photo service just made its pictures free to use http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/5/5475202/getty-images-made-its-pictures-free-to-use
The article explores some issues around embedding, but one wonders if this is the end of the era of Extortion!
Topic: Big Change at Getty -- Free Use (Read 11498 times)