Getty Images makes it hard for some customers to purchase RM images. See what I learned when I tried to license usage of 4 images from Getty. We complain about the unauthorized use of images online and then we make it almost impossible for many potential image users to find out how to license images legitimately.
Anyone who reads the comments on Selling Stock knows that travel photographer Bill Bachmann is a strong advocate of Rights Managed licensing and adamantly opposed to ever making any of his images available as Royalty Free. Imagine his surprise when he discovered that someone had found one of his images on Bing, grabbed it and used it as a background for another photo. And the other photographer was so proud of what he had done that he explained that the image he created was a "Bing Royalty Free background with model added."
Alamy has launched Alamy iQ, a service designed to help customers better manage all the visual assets they own or have licensed rights to use. Alamy iQ will be particularly beneficial to global organizations that have people sourcing visual assets from many locations for a variety of uses. It will complement or replace existing asset management systems, help speed decision making and eliminate risk.
If we want to reduce copyright infringements we must make it easier for people to be honest. Reasoned education is not working. Aggressive pursuit of infringements is not slowing the number of infringements. This story suggests three steps that are technologically possible today and which the industry ought to be exploring.
PicScout has announced the launch of the ImageIRC Post-Usage-Billing Service designed to assure photographers and content licensors that their work will be properly acknowledged on social media platforms which embrace the ImageIRC Post Usage Billing solution.
Getty Images, Inc. has announced the release of
Connect by Getty Images, an innovative new content distribution service. This powerful and flexible API is designed to give Web publishers built-in access within their publishing tools to Getty’s images, as well as the search metadata associated with them.