Getty Images Sold!

[Moe Hacken]

That's true, S.G. You can't make this shit up, it's like a Coen Brothers script or something.

Mulligan makes a very good point. I don't think Carlyle intends to lose money with this acquisition. They may just find a way to monetize Getty by mixing its operations with some of the other Carlyle holdings, including defense contracts and other media holdings.

Why not? The C.G. has a long track record of squeezing profits from government contracts. It will be interesting to see how the C.G. manages to pull that off.

[Greg Troy (KeepFighting)]

If CG is used to the government contracts paying $500 for a single hammer they certainly must like the idea of $500 for single image. While my comment of CG buying Getty as a tax loss was made in jest I do feel along the same lines as Matthew, that unless the stock image companies radically change their operations they are doomed to failure just as the dinosaurs were doomed. The days of people willing to pay $500 for an image they can get on I-stock for just a few dollars are pretty much over.

As others have said and I agree with them, the photographers will need to change as well. It used to be you had to know what you are doing to take and develop professional photographs but the technology has changed such that even people like myself that know absolutely nothing about photography can now take very nice pictures. I recently purchased a very nice digital camera to take pictures of my remodels to post on my website and when I go back and compare older photographs I have taken with some of my recent pictures the difference in quality is amazing. So the photographers will need to understand and change with the times as well.