The Company has started a process of refinancing its balance sheet, including the existing senior secured credit agreement to which the parties are the Company, the guarantors and JPMorgan as Administrative Agent. The process is expected to conclude in two to three months and may involve the marketing of a combination of loans, senior notes and preferred equity.
Subject to closing of the transaction, Getty Images will also implement a series of leadership changes that will come into effect at the end of the year. Jonathan Klein will maintain his entire equity interest in the Company alongside the Getty family and members of management. I look forward to continuing to serve Getty Images — a company that I am passionate about — on its Board of Directors.
Getty has partnered with other companies including Slidely for companies and advertisers to use the Getty Images video library of around 2 million videos. Archive Photos had been formed in from the merger of Pictorial Parade est.
Further acquisitions followed, with the purchase in of image. The acquisition gave Getty Images control of WireImage Entertainment, creative, and sports photography , FilmMagic fashion and red carpet photography , and Contour Photos portrait and studio photography. The sale went ahead in February ; Jupiterimages including the sites stock. Jupitermedia, now trading as WebMediaBrands, continues its Internet publishing business, which they didn't sell to Getty Images.
On 25 January , Corbis announced that it had sold its image licensing business, including the Corbis Images, Corbis Motion and Veer libraries and their associated assets, to Unity Glory, an affiliate of Visual China Group—Getty's exclusive distributor in China. Concurrently, it was announced that VCG would, after a transition period, license distribution and marketing of the Corbis library outside of China to Getty.
On 2 July , Getty Images announced the completion of its acquisition. Getty continues to serve as chairman and Klein as chief executive. In September , the Getty family announced it would acquire majority stake in the company from Carlyle Group. Beginning in , Getty Images has created controversy for its methods of pursuing copyright enforcement on behalf of its photographers. Rather than pursue a policy of sending "cease and desist" notices, Getty typically mails a demand letter that claims substantial monetary damages from owners of websites it believes infringed on their photographers' copyrights.
Getty commonly tries to intimidate website owners by sending collection agents, even though a demand letter does not create a debt. One photographer noted, "Courts don't like to be used as a means of extortion. In this case, the church offered to pay Getty what it thought was a reasonable amount. The diocese's communications director said: Getty was not playing ball or following the normal litigation or dispute resolution procedures and [I advised the church] to ignore them.
We don't deal with bullies; we deal with legal threats appropriately. I told [Getty] by letter that's what [the church was] doing, that we were not going to play, and didn't hear any more.
The Guardian described other instances in which Getty or other stock photo businesses dropped a claim when a website owner refused to pay and hired a lawyer. A law firm was quoted as saying: "Once we get involved generally Getty does back off.
In , Oscar Michelen, a New York attorney who focuses on such damages claims, said: "The damages they're requesting aren't equal to the copyright infringement," and "there's no law that says definitively what images are worth in the digital age.
In an effort to combat online copyright infringement, in March Getty Images made over 35 million images available free for non-commercial online use via embedding with attribution and a link back to the Getty Images website.
Industry experts say that means Getty Images and its rivals will continue pushing down the prices paid to stock photographers. John Harrington, a Washington, D. None of which is encouraging for stock photographers themselves. Zera, the Seattle-area photographer, says the downward price spiral has made stock photography all but untenable for professionals like him.
The opinions expressed in reader comments are those of the author only and do not reflect the opinions of The Seattle Times. Show caption. By Paul Roberts. It is also, arguably, the most controversial. And, critics say, Getty can be tough on the people who make those images in the first place. Paul Roberts: proberts seattletimes.
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