Getty Images photobank has opened free access to 35 million photos



    Getty Images, one of the largest photobanks in the world, removed watermarks from 35 million photos - and allowed them to be published free of charge for non-commercial purposes through an Embed embedded content frame , like YouTube and others.

    For Getty Images, this is an important step. Previously, they fought against violators with threats and fines, demanding that their photos larger than 150x150 px be deleted. Now they allow you to post good quality pictures for free.

    Such actions of the largest photobank show that old methods with harsh copyright protection and watermarks are ineffective on the Internet. Threat emailsto the owners of sites that have published "pirated" content, is not valid. Bloggers do not have money to pay 200-500 dollars for each photo.

    In the past, the publishers were purely professional firms, but on the Internet, every publisher is his own. “In fact, everyone is a publisher today thanks to social media and blogging platforms,” said Craig Peters, senior vice president of business development. “And it's incredibly easy to find a photo on the Internet, and then just right-click to use it.”

    Getty Images noted that photos from her photo bank are actively published on social media and blogs. “And they are published without watermarks,” Peters says. - Instead, users find a blank copy of the photo using search engines. We found that the vast majority of violations in this area are caused by the activities of unprofessional publishers who, as a rule, know nothing about copyright and licensing and who do not have a budget to pay for the necessary content. ”

    Getty Images chose the right method to deal with this problem: on March 6, she opened a collection of photos for everyone through embedded frames, with a back link and the author of the photo. Due to this, the photo bank will gain more control over its content, because it is still freely published on the Internet. At the same time, according to the terms of service, Getty Images has the right to block access to photos at any time.

    Peters also added that getting a site’s revenue from contextual advertising or other revenue still allows it to use Getty Images.


    Code for embedding photos Getty Images

    The site is running a searchby keywords. Results are filtered by topic and other parameters. Embed function is available only for a part of pictures from the photo bank.

    Also popular now: