Getty Images Acquires PicScout

[SoylentGreen]

Getty Images Acquires PicScout

SEATTLE, April 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ – Getty Images, a leading creator and distributor of visual content and other media, today announced that it has acquired PicScout, a leader in identifying image use, metadata and licensing information on the web.

(If you don't know what PicScout is; copyright trolls such as getty, masterfile and riddick employ it to scan the web for alleged unlicensed use of images).

http://www.ipwire.com/ip-deals-and-opinion/getty-images-acquires-picscout.html

Note to Oscar:  you're going to get even busier..!



S.G.

[Matthew Chan]

SG,

Wow, this is seriously big news and definitely going to be interesting to watch. We will likely do a video on this at some point.

Thanks for catching this here! Kudos!

Matthew

[SoylentGreen]

Matt,

My Pleasure.

It's pretty savvy on Getty's part, really.  I'll give them that.
Other companies (Masterfile, I'm looking in your direction!) will enrich their competitor Getty every time they use PicScout.  Wonder how they feel about that?
Getty paid handsomely for PicScout.  But, they can now afford to search the web 24/7 for infringements from their entire catalog.
I have no doubt that they'll integrate their other databases into the system to automate the process somewhat.

This deal is certainly an indicator of Getty's future plans, and quantifies just how big they expect "infringement sales" to be in the near future.

S.G.




 

[Oscar Michelen]

That Getty paid $20 Million for PicScout shows to all how much money they are  making off this program.  BTW I wonder how Masterfile and Corbis feel about sharing part of their infringement income with their biggest rival, Getty.

[Helpi]

"That Getty paid $20 Million for PicScout shows to all how much money they are  making off this program."

Actually it seems like a good fit. One would assume it was shopped to a number of large content owners including Masterfile and Corbis.

"BTW I wonder how Masterfile and Corbis feel about sharing part of their infringement income with their biggest rival, Getty."

They'll pay ("share") the non-infringement part of their income to use the service if it makes you feel better...

[Oscar Michelen]

Yes Helpi I understand that but it cannot make them happy that what use to go to PicScout now goes to their competitor.