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February 2nd Coined, “Deactivation Day” Citing Google and Getty Image Deal

Chris Gampat
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01/19/2013
1 Min read
Screen Shot 2013-01-19 at 9.07.55 AM

Last Updated on 01/19/2013 by Chris Gampat

Screen Shot 2013-01-19 at 9.07.55 AM

 

The image sharing wars are heating up even more. First, Instagram lost a ton of followers due to their TOS agreement change. Then a couple of days ago, we reported on a new deal between Google and Getty Images. When Google reported on the new deal on their Drive blog, they 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.” But they weren’t clear on where the images were coming from.

Eventually it was discovered that they were coming from iStock photo. And the concerned comments numbered in the thousands. As a response to this move, users are organizing, and citing February 2nd as their very own, “D-Day.” At the time of reporting on this news, the thread is around 10 pages long. The users think that it is about quick profit and greed.

The users in the thread have mixed feelings. Some don’t want to deactivate all of their images, others will only do some, and more steadfast users are going to go all in and deactivate everything. Of any story in the image sharing world right now, this is the one to watch. iStock photo and stock photos to begin with aren’t very profitable these days, but they’ve sure angered a lot of users.

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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.