Getty & Google Struck a Deal, People are Not Happy

Hot on the heels of Instagram’s ToS debacle, Getty Images has decided to start one of their own, and it’s a doozy. According to the Google Drive Blog they have announced that “5,000 new photos of nature, weather, animals, sports, food, education, technology, music and 8 other categories are now available for your use in Docs, Sheets, and Slides.” What does this mean for the photographers who own these images? Read on to find out what we know so far.

On the blog post by Google there was no mention made as to where the majority of the images came from, who they belonged to or how they were licensed. They basically just stated that if you have a Google Drive account, you have access to these images and are free to use them in your documents however you choose. If you read through the comments on that post you will notice that there are progressively more and more upset responses from the readers as they began to understand more of the situation. In a forum post on istockphoto.com dated Jan. 10, 2013 a user named “sjlocke” there uncovered what was really going on.

Someone sent me a link to this page, wherein Google describes acquiring 5,000 images for use in their Google Drive program. I don’t use Google apps, so I thought I would check it out.

Basically, you go to https://drive.google.com and create a new document. Then you “insert” and select “image”. Then in the dialog, you pick “Search” and “Stock Photo”. I type in “student”…

The first image that comes up is mine.

Once I select it, it puts it into my document at 1,066 x 1,600. No attribution. No meta-data. No license. No link.

WTF. I’m serious. Their link about copyright says “When using the Google Image Search feature in Google Docs, your results will be filtered to include images labeled with a license that allows you to copy the image for commercial purposes and modify it in ways specified in the license.”. Now the search is titled “stock images” which makes me think these were acquired directly from iStock.

Some more searching, and some of my tailgate images are there, damn it. BTW, these are all Vetta images!!!

Another for “exam room”.

Anyone want to tell me what is going on?

That thread accumulated 537 responses before being locked by the administrators, clearly people are concerned and rightly so. In an attempt to clarify the situation, another post titled “Google Drive + Update ” is submitted by mr_erin who appears to work for istockphoto with the following information:

This is a license deal arranged with Google through Getty Images, this is not a promotional arrangement like the 2007 MS deal also being discussed here recently.

There was an initial pool of several thousand images licensed from Getty and iStock RF collections that are on the Getty Images platform.

No RM content was included in this pool or deal.

Royalties for these images were paid through Getty Images and were processed in October and November of 2012.
Of images licensed, just under 700 are from a group of about 490 iStock contributors.

Just under 100 of those contributors have multiple files within the pool, the rest have a single file.

There may eventually be additional content added to this pool/agreement, but at the moment there are no concrete plans

That thread accumulated 656 responses before being locked, and now another followup post has been submitted again by mr_erin stating:

“We’ve heard you, and we’ve met with Google and are working with them to refine the implementation which we believe will address some of the concerns raised over the past several days–including copyright ownership.”

To me it sounds like the wildfire response from so many online communities has not entirely fallen on deaf ears and they are going to hopefully restructure the agreement to be in everyone’s best interest. We will be keeping a close eye on the development of this issue, and as we find more information we will update you all.

Via A Photo Editor

Update (1/18/13): It appears that the image count has grown from 5000 to over 7000 and is continuing to grow.

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Tagged as: Getty Images, google, google drive, Photographer's Rights

http://www.togtech.com/ Tyler Olson

To suggest that they are going to restructure the agreement to everyeone’s liking is wishful thinking IMO. They have stated numerous times that they have more similar deals in the works suggesting that one should expect more of this, not less. As a result there is a large group of photographers who are going to deactivate their images on Feb. 2 which has been coined “deactivation day”.

http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/d-day-(deactivation-day)-on-istock-feb-2/
- http://www.goglanianphoto.com/ Abram Goglanian
  
  I agree, it is wishful thinking, call me an optimist. Though it doesn’t sound like things are going to improve.
http://twitter.com/kidzmom2009 Kelly

Actually it is 7072 photos…15 more than yesterday. I have four. Not pleased…and still waiting for Getty to resolve this.
- http://www.goglanianphoto.com/ Abram Goglanian
  
  Yikes! It’s grown then, thank you for the update and I’m sorry to hear that your images got included, I hope they resolve the matter.
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Roland

Why do you guys not simply vote with your feet and take your images to another stock photo site? One not connected to Getty in any form or shape, of course…
- Hannafate
  
  That’s what’s happening.
alex

I have two images in this scheme that I wasn’t paid $12. Never mind!
This is the message from Getty to 80k mad as hell IS contributors:

We (Getty/IS ) are so powerful so we can do whatever we want and you’re nothing but poor miserable contributors depending on us. We need $$$ we need millions, we need billions no,no, we need trillions $$$ and we will do everything to increase our profit. We are going to make a deal(if is’s necessary) even with the devil just to make our profit bigger and bigger.

Looks like they are trying to commit business suicide. IS used to be such a nice place. R.I.P. Let it be
Underground Stock Railroad

Amateur camera owners were warned about this over and over again by experienced pros who have not only chosen to pass on Getty, iStock and all that other amateur garbage, but have gone to unique, fully self sustaining business models for selling stock imagery. These new off the radar business models are sticking it to the likes of Getty and are working brilliantly as the creative economy recovers, my sales are up to nearly what they were pre-08, amazing really when one considers just how far up each other’s rear ends amateur and desperate low talent pros have been and the iStock born hubris that quickly followed.

So almost right on time, it is GAME OVER for microstock and the corporations make out like bandits as they gasp their last breath and YOU the IDIOT who signed up with dollar signs in your eyes as thousands lined up behind you, are left with nothing. You think this is bad, it is only going to get worse…for you that is, the DSLR owning hack who chose the path to what you thought was easy money.

Game over kids, only the pros who have innovated will be left, period!
- Bobby McFetture
  
  You sound like Lance Armstrong. Hope you feel better now.
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http://arenacreative.com/ ArenaCreative.com Stock Photos

iStock dropped the ball bigtime. No prior warning or opt-out option like a business partner with character and integrity would do. The way this is all playing out is like watching a train wreck. And yes, I’m one of the “100 artists” with more than one istock image in this big wonderful bowl of spaghetti. I only have around 1300 images in the istock collection, and I stopped contributing a looooong time ago when the true colors of the company started showing. This can only get worse as time goes on, unless istock and Getty are smart enough to see what they’re doing to themselves… shooting themselves in the foot.