Getty Images has made it possible for anyone to easily embed and share its imagery – at no cost – for non-commercial use on websites, blogs and social media channels through a new embed
tool.
Getty says, with people increasingly turning to imagery to communicate and tell their stories online, the embed capability opens up our award-winning imagery for seamless sharing. Through the embed tool, individuals can draw on Getty Images’ latest news, sports, celebrity, music and fashion coverage; immense digital photo archive; and rich conceptual images to illustrate their unique passions, ideas and interests. This innovation opens one of the largest, deepest and most comprehensive image collections in the world for easy sharing, thereby making the world an even more visual place.
“Images are the communication medium of today and imagery has become the world’s most spoken language,” said Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images. “Whether via a blog, website or social media, everyone is a publisher and increasingly visually literate.
“Innovation and disruption are the foundation of Getty Images, and we are excited to open up our vast and growing image collection for easy,
legal sharing in a new way that benefits
our content contributors and partners, and advances our core mission to enable a more visually-rich world.” (Italics mine.)
While Getty reserves the right to remove some images from this program, at this point virtually all the images in Creative Stills and Editorial collections are available for this type of download.
How To Embed
To embed an image, people can visit
www.gettyimages.com, hover over an image in the search results or on the image detail page, and click the embed icon (</>). A box appears with the code that needs to be copied into the users HTML code. The code looks like this.
<iframe src="//embed.gettyimages.com/embed/137902171?et=IzKh1nZCmEq2d9KotWf8SA&sig=wYkUrWGwsU3pwXziXX3YwDoHrO5VkAiWGvv62X5F4cM=" width="507" height="406" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
Here’s the image when the above code is inserted into HTML.
Embedded images include photographer attribution. When someone clicks on the image they will be taken directly to
www.gettyimages.com where the image can be licensed for commercial use. This provides people with a simple and legal way to utilize content while respecting creators’ rights and offering the opportunity to generate licensing revenue.
It is interesting that by changing the height to 326 instead of 406 it is possible to cut off both the Getty Images logo and the photographer attribution and show just the image. However, if someone clicks on the image they will still be taken directly to gettyimages.com. Getty will also be able to track every web site that is using one of their images in this manner.
For the time being this feature is only available on Gettyimages.com and not on the company’s master delegate sites. A decision will be made later about whether to make iStock and Thinkstock images available in this manner. Of course, the images of iStock photographers whose images are also available on gettyimages.com are also available for embedding.
The embed capability will be supported anywhere HTML can be posted. Users will also be able to share images on major social platforms including Twitter, as well as WordPress, which, with 75 million users, is the world’s most popular blogging platform.
"This new Getty Images embed capability will open users up to a huge new creative repository in a simple, legal way," said Raanan Bar-Cohen, senior vice president of commercial services at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. "We look forward to seeing all the amazing ways that our users can take advantage of this new access."
What Is Commerical?
The tricky question is what is “commercial use.” Getty tells embed users to refer to the Embed “
Terms of Use.” The document is 3,917 words long. At one point it says, “You are specifically prohibited from: (a) downloading, copying, or re-transmitting any or all of the Site or the Getty Images Content without, or in violation of,
a written license or agreement with Getty Images.” Is Getty going to provide a written license to everyone who uses the embed tool?
It also says the user is specifically prohibited from “(g) selling, licensing, leasing,
or in any way commercializing the Site or the Getty Images Content without specific written authorization from Getty Images.” Is an online blog that reports news, ostensibly for free, but generates revenue by selling ads a commercial venture, or not?
At another point in the Terms of Use it says, “You may only use embedded Getty Images Content for editorial purposes (
meaning relating to events that are newsworthy or of public interest).” Does editorial commentary qualify? Is everything a blogger has to say “newsworthy or of public interest?”
Am I the only one who is confused, or does it take a lawyer to explain it?
A very popular and growing use of images is on blogs like @historypics that can be found on Twitter. (
Read more about it.) Some other blogs of the same ilk are: @EarthPix, @HistoryInPics, @IncredibleViews, @fabulousanimals and @Fascinatingpics,
These bloggers find pictures people like to look at and concentrate on getting a lot of followers to their site. Once a site gets a lot of followers businesses that want to reach people interested in the subject matter contact the blogger and pay them to say something nice about their business or product. Sort of like an advertorial. (If you’re interested in making money rather than shooting pictures it might be better to pick any entertainer, search out the best pictures of that entertainer on gettyimages.com, create a blog and wait for people to ask you to say something nice about the entertainer.)
This kind of advertising is called “native advertising.” It was a multi-billion dollar segment of the advertising industry last year and growing at a rate of 71% according to BIA/Kelsey estimates. Is this a commercial use? Many of these sites would have no followers if they didn’t have photos, but there is no way to tie a specific photo to ad revenue generated.
SXSW Interactive
This new embed capability will be showcased during SXSW Interactive at Getty Images House at the Palm Door, 401 Sabine Street, Austin, from Sunday, March 9, through Tuesday, March 11. On Monday, March 10 at 10:00 a.m. CT, Getty Images will host a blogger meet up where the new functionality can be experienced. More information about the event can be found
here, but the event is already sold out.
For more information and visual assets that demonstrate how Getty Images’ embed tool works, visit
www.gettyimages.com/embed, or stop by the Getty Images Embed Blogger Bar at SXSW.