Author Topic: Getty getting sued by photographers (Read 6008 times)

NancyCWalker · « **on:** November 03, 2008, 10:36 »

There is a class action lawsuit being brought by current and past RM photographers against Getty over Getty's subscription services.

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/legal-news/e3i397aa99d2932d77da0aebdbf63c12a2c

lisafx · « **Reply #1 on:** November 03, 2008, 12:34 »

Very interesting Nancy. Thanks for posting! I wish the Getty artists the best of luck.

rene · « **Reply #2 on:** November 03, 2008, 12:53 »

I hope one day I'll see microstock photographers behave like that.
StockXpert - Photo - Ji "one month not paying bug" story will never be accepted by RM photographers.

litifeta · « **Reply #3 on:** November 03, 2008, 17:01 »

Looks like the death knell in the Old Curiousity Shop that was Macro.

For a lot of us, who were hoping to climb into that sphere at sometime, it is sad.

graficallyminded · « **Reply #4 on:** November 03, 2008, 18:23 »

Could I get some free munniez too? I werk for iStock

yingyang0 · « **Reply #5 on:** November 04, 2008, 10:45 »

Quote

The lawsuit argues that Premium Access violated Getty's agreements with rights-managed photographers, which requires the agency to track image usage and to set prices “in good faith and in a commercially reasonable manner,” in the words of the lawsuit.

I think it might be more difficult to prove that it wasn't commercially reasonable ("Payments have been as low as $2.08") because of all the microstock competition.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #6 on:** November 04, 2008, 11:01 »

Quote from: yingyang0 on November 04, 2008, 10:45

Quote
The lawsuit argues that Premium Access violated Getty's agreements with rights-managed photographers, which requires the agency to track image usage and to set prices “in good faith and in a commercially reasonable manner,” in the words of the lawsuit.

I think it might be more difficult to prove that it wasn't commercially reasonable ("Payments have been as low as $2.08") because of all the microstock competition.

Right, plus filing a lawsuit and winning it are two different things.

bittersweet · « **Reply #7 on:** November 04, 2008, 11:26 »

Quote from: yingyang0 on November 04, 2008, 10:45

Quote
The lawsuit argues that Premium Access violated Getty's agreements with rights-managed photographers, which requires the agency to track image usage and to set prices “in good faith and in a commercially reasonable manner,” in the words of the lawsuit.

I think it might be more difficult to prove that it wasn't commercially reasonable ("Payments have been as low as $2.08") because of all the microstock competition.

But there is a big difference between royalty free microstock and rights-managed. I think if they were comparing royalty free to royalty free, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but in this case it appears that Getty has devalued their RM images to the point where they don't really have the option of selling them RM in the future. However, we've only been given a tiny bit of info here.

Elenathewise · « **Reply #8 on:** November 04, 2008, 11:45 »

Wow - sometimes I wonder what's in their heads... (Getty management). RM was always priced higher than RF since the customer would pay for exclusive rights to use the image in certain industry for a certain time - like a year for example. Now imagine you got 2 dollars for that RM use, which means the image is basically locked for entire year. That's all you get from that image for entire year! Managing rights also means you have to keep track of which images used where and for how long - which is also an overhead. And this is all for as low as 2 dollars!
Boy, if I was in RM business with Getty, I'd definitely join the suit. Prices do drop with advancing technology, but this is plain ridiculous.

jsnover · « **Reply #9 on:** November 04, 2008, 12:15 »

Quote from: Elenathewise on November 04, 2008, 11:45

RM was always priced higher than RF since the customer would pay for exclusive rights to use the image in certain industry for a certain time - like a year for example. Now imagine you got 2 dollars for that RM use, which means the image is basically locked for entire year.

I don't know the details of the Getty deals, but RM doesn't always mean exclusive rights for that period. It just means that you have tracked all uses and thus can tell what's being used where and for how long. I can't imagine that the subscription deal would give exclusive rights for $2.08, but it might just be a huge discount on what it would otherwise have fetched.

Effectively, iStock's subscriptions are a discount program - you get a better price per credit than you would otherwise - but an EL still costs much more than an XS with a regular license. I would assume something similar was going on with Premium Access. It seems that one of the beefs is that the actual usage is not properly tracked thus making it hard/impossible to offer other RM deals on those images.

Elenathewise · « **Reply #10 on:** November 04, 2008, 12:52 »

right, it doesn't necessarily mean exclusive, I should have phrased it better. However, the fact remains - you do have to track the usage, let's say the image is bought for a book cover, they would want to make sure another book won't come out with the same cover (that's why I said - certain industry). And they do state in the article above that RM payments have been as low as 2.08.
I personally saw complaints on some forums that people would get 20 dollars for a 5 year book deal on RM image just because it's a "high volume customer". High volume means good for the agency, but NOT for the photographer, because all he did was sold his book cover RM image for 20 bucks (for 5 years!).
Now with RF it's totally different story since you can sell it as many times as you want, EL or some other "L" - it's still RF.

yingyang0 · « **Reply #11 on:** November 04, 2008, 15:08 »

Quote from: Elenathewise on November 04, 2008, 12:52

However, the fact remains - you do have to track the usage, let's say the image is bought for a book cover, they would want to make sure another book won't come out with the same cover (that's why I said - certain industry). And they do state in the article above that RM payments have been as low as 2.08.

I don't think there is much if any overhead in making a database entry about the image's manage use. The $2.08 was the royalty paid to the photographer not what the corporation paid for the image rights (I think there is some confusion), but yes that seems extremely low for a RM license.