Why do people HATE Getty Image?

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

It's very clear why the members of ELI have a dislike for the copyright trolls at Getty Images... But there are more reasons than just the trolling..

http://amplicate.com/hate/getty-images

and this from a photography forum

"I look at Getty like Hitler. They under cut our business and are ruthless. Just because their grandparents were rich oil tycoons they litearlly killed jobs for us by undercutting our prices."

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1014&message=42027279

[SoylentGreen]

Good posting.  Yup, those are some disgruntled folks.

As I mentioned in another thread, since neither they or the artist signs their contracts, who knows what they could do with the artist's content?
A dispute would have to be settled in court... and they have lots of money for a court fight.

Also, I've been been looking around recently, and I'm impressed by the affordable royalty-free content now available.
There's some great alternatives to buying from Getty.

Alas, the consumer's gain means that the artists make less money.

S.G.

[Moe Hacken]

Here's a recent example of a really disgruntled photographer lashing out at Getty (and AFP images):

Daniel Morel is a professional photographer and was in Port-au-Prince when the earthquake happened. He immediately started taking photos and made some of them available in high resolution through Twitter/Twitpic. The photos were retweeted and an AFP editor downloaded them and shared them with AFPs own subscribers as well with Getty Images who resold the photos as well. In total 820 copies of Morel’s photos were sold.

http://sm4good.com/2012/05/14/photographer-sues-afp-120-million-twitterphotos/

Looks like this photographer is executing some very effective trolling Jiu-Jitsu on Getty/AFP.

[Greg Troy (KeepFighting)]

Good post and very interesting reading the comments.

@Moe

That is a good find, I had not heard about that lawsuit.  We'll have to keep an eye on that one.

[Mulligan]

Boy, I'd love to see that guy who Tweeted the Haiti earthquake photos win a $100,000,000 judgment from Getty Images. Talk about poetic justice and karma. With that said, the cynic in me says he'll never see any money because the case will be drawn out by Getty's lawyers unto the crack of doom.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

That earthquake copyright story made the headline news on a few prominent stations, cnn being one of them...the other interesting case is the scented tree case...I'm hoping Getty gets their asses handed to them in that one as well.

[stinger]

This is a really interesting case because AFP essentially argues that it was ok to take the photos and even profit from them financially, simply because they were on the internet. However, at the same time AFP and Getty are pursuing bloggers who take their photos without permission. Surely you can’t have it both ways.

Besides, I would argue that companies, whose sole business model is acquiring and reselling rights should really know better and be held to a higher standard.

I hope they get the full judgement, plus some punitive damages just to make guys like me feel better.  I know some lawyer is going to say that punitive damages don't apply, but "they can't have it both ways."