I know no more than was posted this afternoon. Not clear to me how a combined company would be better off from the investor point of view - both are struggling to grow at the rate investors want to see.
From the contributor point of view, both agencies have a history of forcing down royalty rates, so there's probably not much good news for suppliers.
Happy New Year!
https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/getty-images-explores-merger-with-shutterstock-bloomberg-news-reports-2025-01-03/ (https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/getty-images-explores-merger-with-shutterstock-bloomberg-news-reports-2025-01-03/)
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/getty-images-exploring-merger-shutterstock-212322433.html (https://finance.yahoo.com/video/getty-images-exploring-merger-shutterstock-212322433.html)
https://seekingalpha.com/news/4392448-getty-images-soars-on-report-that-shutterstock-is-interested-in-a-merger (https://seekingalpha.com/news/4392448-getty-images-soars-on-report-that-shutterstock-is-interested-in-a-merger)
Seeking Alpha incorrectly says that Getty went public in 2008 - they were bought by Hellman & Friedman in 2008 (https://hf.com/portfolio/getty-images-inc/) and taken private.
Probably unrelated: Adobe's stock dropped to $430.57 this afternoon after UBS issued a report describing "headwinds" in trying to monetize AI
https://finance.yahoo.com/m/c900c577-54a7-3e19-8e4a-db5d77ad79e8/adobe-stock-falls-as-ubs.html (https://finance.yahoo.com/m/c900c577-54a7-3e19-8e4a-db5d77ad79e8/adobe-stock-falls-as-ubs.html)
From Barrons: "Adobe has increasingly embraced AI, rolling out its Firefly suite and incorporating generative AI tools into its flagship photo-editing software. However, UBS said early leaders like OpenAI, Runway, and Midjourney may outpace Adobe in the battle for a market the bank described as "fiercely competitive.""
A Getty Shutterstock merger might get scrutiny from the US government's anti-trust watchdogs.
So Getty, Shutterstock, Pond 5, and Envato (plus all the other smaller agencies that Getty, Shutterstock, Pond 5 and Envato have bought out over the years) all owned by one company?! Cray cray! Give it 5 years and they'll be bought by Disney or Amazon!
SS / Getty merger makes little sense to me (but what do I know). What would be much more logical is Adobe / Alamy merger, or Adobe buying Alamy which has strong Editorial foothold, and this is something Adobe lacks. Ain't gonna happen but if it would I'd become exclusive. One can always dream.
Re Adobe stock drop: not really surprising. Heavy bet on that abomination they call Firefly had to come back & bite them where sun doesn't shine. I really hope they drop it. Not likely though
A desperate move from shortsighted managements to keep their hungry investors happy... but for how long? Reality will set in after a quarter or two, and then what? It's almost ironic that Getty would choose Shutterstock as a partner. From an imagery perspective, Getty offers so much more in terms of quality and variety. Now they're looking to merge with a library that's heavily diluted with AI content. How long before the vultures realize the bottomless pit they're diving into?
I do see the point that together they are a much larger business and can save a lot of costs by combined their teams (and cut down on people).
But who would be running the show???
If it is Getty, then the new company would have good media experience and probably the shutterstock library would get cleaned up drastically to remove undeclared ai.
Getty also has a great editorial team, so they could just take over.
But...if it is the Shutterstock management taking over...then Getty/istock will get run down.
That would then affect a lot of people still making a full time income with Getty.
If it is a Getty organized buyout, I do see an advantage in a more professionally run Shutterstock and maybe a rise in clients.
I simply cannot imagine that Getty would be sold out to Shutterstock, it would probably then mean the slow death of both agencies.
Perhaps Oringer and partners want to get out.
Sell Shutterstock while the slow death is not so easy to see.
They are already being targeted by short sellers.
eta
After actually reading the links it looks like Getty is in the drivers seat.
SS stock has dropped a lot, it is actually quite clever of Getty to try to take over.
SS looks like a mess with all their mad aquisitions but no rise in sales.
Thanks for the heads-up, I have shared to the iStock forum.
For the istock exclusives this would be very good news. All the customers they could not reach, those clients will now be coming to them.
It will make istock exclusivity more attractive again.
I believe SS was a large factor in the "race to the bottom" regarding pricing? I am not sorry to see them "go".
SS is one of the leaders in the price race to the bottom, Getty is one of the leaders in the percentage paid to the artist race to the bottom. Together they will deliver really exciting news.
in my opinion it could be good news from the point of view of sales volume which could increase for us contributors with a merger.
if they want to hope for a better future they must first of all change the royalty structure,the percentage for contributors must be higher,we are the ones who produce the contents,yes they sell,but they take 85% of the sale,and it is truly too much!
can be for them an opportunity to review their policies,but knowing the 2 subjects I highly doubt it!
Just to make this clear for our speculation. Getty has 3 times the corporate value of SS, roughly. 3 Billion vs 1 Billion. Getty has double the stock value of SSTK. But Getty has been paying back a large chunk of their profits (which makes them at a loss each year) for old debt. Getty doubled their customer base last year, but is still making less money, because these are the subscription buyers, not the high value, single image customers.
As far as all sources have reported this, Getty is the one proposing the merger. GETY stock jumped up and so did SSTK, based on the proposal of the merger.
I know that first I thought of "merger" I imagined one big agency. But the more I think about it, this could be a corporate merger, which leaves each as a division of the same corporation, operating on their own. No change for us.
I ask myself, do I want 15%, no change, no options, or do I want the essentially meaningless, annual reset and dime downloads. Yippee, I was up to 25 or 30% at SS and still getting 10-12¢ per download. 15% of a higher number has generally been, more than the measly SS dimes.
If you have Editorial, remember when iStock cut the Editorial News images because it was competition for Getty? They disabled 3,657 of mine, which was most of my IS income. Will Getty ask SS to do that as well?
Every article includes that the market for stock images has been severely devalued by AI, which is cheaper and easier to access.
The people talking about "ai devaluing stock images" have obviously never tried to create something specific with ai.
Once you have wasted an afternoon on trying to create content, you will gladly buy from agencies again.
It simply doesn't work, you need far too many attempts and then you still need to edit in photoshop.
What was bringing prices down is the oversupply and more content being created in countries with lower costs of living.
But that is only true for images.
Why agencies decided to lower the prices for video even though there still is very little content, is something I don't understand.
Making web sizes cheap for social media use, ok, but why bring down the costs of 4k?
They might call it a merger, but the only logical way to go about it is if Getty takes over. They are the people with a solid understanding of the stock market.
Shutterstock used to have that, but they gave it all away 3 years ago.
Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on January 04, 2025, 02:13
Seeking Alpha incorrectly says that Getty went public in 2008 - they were bought by Hellman & Friedman in 2008 (https://hf.com/portfolio/getty-images-inc/) and taken private.
Getty was brought back on the market through a SPAC, IPO in July 2022. Investors bought in at $10 a share.
(https://i.postimg.cc/25jjDs9B/SSTK-and-GETY-graph.jpg)
"Deliberations are ongoing and Getty could choose not to pursue a deal, the report added." I don't trust much of this as anything but unconfirmed rumors. Maybe a pump and dump.
Quote from: pancaketom on January 04, 2025, 15:05
SS is one of the leaders in the price race to the bottom, Getty is one of the leaders in the percentage paid to the artist race to the bottom. Together they will deliver really exciting news.
LOL (times 3). You are right on.
What we are witnessing is final end of microstock starting to unfold. 2 giants, leaders in the field, not able to stay afloat and exploring desperate measures before final fold.
depends on how this merger is managed,there are many possible scenarios.
however I don't know why every articles say "market for stock images has been severely devalued by AI" because that's simply not the case.
Istock was the first to devalue the market by lowering prices to attract more customers and reducing royalties to 15% a decade before AI,they started playing with the spring,which is a lot of fun,but then this game bounces back in your face! :D
the price of digital content to the end customer must rise,the percentages for contributors must increase.
everything is increasing and we have to earn more,simply this.
AI will never be able to replace the work of digital media creators,AI certainly change,AI have changed the scenario,the type of work a lot....but AI will never be able to replace creators in my opinion,at least not in this century I think! :)
ai cannot replace creators, just like the mobile phone did not replace creators.
However, I sincely doubt royalties will go up. Prices might rise with inflation, because agencies will gradually increase prices as well.
But content creation is moving to countries with very low costs. If they can make 300 dollars a month that is a nice midlevel income in many countries.
So why should agencies pay more? Because production in New York, London and Tokio are expensive?
They all have a premium segment where a small group of producers do earn quite a bit more to cover their production.
But that is only for the pros. For a few selected pros.
The unwashed masses will be looking at lower royalties and money.
Quote from: cobalt on January 04, 2025, 18:23
The people talking about "ai devaluing stock images" have obviously never tried to create something specific with ai.
Once you have wasted an afternoon on trying to create content, you will gladly buy from agencies again.
It simply doesn't work, you need far too many attempts and then you still need to edit in photoshop.
What was bringing prices down is the oversupply and more content being created in countries with lower costs of living.
But that is only true for images.
Why agencies decided to lower the prices for video even though there still is very little content, is something I don't understand.
Making web sizes cheap for social media use, ok, but why bring down the costs of 4k?
They might call it a merger, but the only logical way to go about it is if Getty takes over. They are the people with a solid understanding of the stock market.
Shutterstock used to have that, but they gave it all away 3 years ago.
You're more optimistic than I am.
I have used AI to generate dozens of images that I used for mockups in a regular basis. This is coming from someone who has had a lot of success in microstock, only to see a steadily decline in the last couple years, which coincides with the rise of generative AI.
Images doesn't have to be perfect. It just have to be good enough. A lot of companies cancelled their SS accounts because they no longer need to pay for an expensive subscriptions when they can generate free images every day from certain services.
Maybe I am doing it wrong :)
I am creating ai for stock every day, still needs loads of prompting and editing to get it right.
I've generated some AI podcast via google in german (sorry guys!) from the reuters and bloomberg news:
https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/f38ddd09-762d-4a21-9543-6f68f9f98bbe/audio
Thank's god we have gemini.
Should this proceed, it would appear the microstock industry battle lines are being drawn up into two with one being the conglomerate of iStock / Shutterstock and all its marketplaces and the other Adobe Stock.
I'm not a trader so have little understanding of it but wondering why Shutterstock would want to do this merger with iStock when they would be merging with a company that has a lot lower share price (currently GETY at $2.39 and SSTK at $31.47)?
Quote from: cobalt on January 04, 2025, 18:23
Why agencies decided to lower the prices for video even though there still is very little content, is something I don't understand.
Making web sizes cheap for social media use, ok, but why bring down the costs of 4k?
I believe this trend has been largely driven by competition from agencies like Artlist and Storyblocks, which offer unlimited downloads through annual subscription plans. In free-market economies, prices for goods and services are fundamentally influenced by competition, supply, and demand—core principles of basic economics.
Quote from: Pacesetter on January 05, 2025, 00:07
Should this proceed, it would appear the microstock industry battle lines are being drawn up into two with one being the conglomerate of iStock / Shutterstock and all its marketplaces and the other Adobe Stock.
I'm not a trader so have little understanding of it but wondering why Shutterstock would want to do this merger with iStock when they would be merging with a company that has a lot lower share price (currently GETY at $2.39 and SSTK at $31.47)?
For starters Getty has over 78 million share and SSTK as 35 million shares thus double the amount of SS.
Here's a timeline of major mergers and acquisitions since 2009 that I put together.
Have I overlooked any other ones?
Source: https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2025/01/04/breaking-news-getty-images-and-shutterstock-discuss-potential-merger/
I thought about putting another column on "Has it benefited contributors", but it's very difficult to know for sure...except for perhaps the SS acquiring Pond5 one.
Updated chart, thanks Jo Ann for inputs.
Ignoring all the agencies Getty acquired in its early years (https://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/getty-images-inc-history/)...
Getty acquired iStock in 2006 (https://www.zdnet.com/article/istockphoto-ceo-on-getty-images-acquisition-exclusive-interview-on-one-year-anniversary/), not 2009
Getty acquired Jupiter Images (and thus StockXpert) in 2008
https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/stock-art-consolidation-getty-to-buy-jupiterimages/ (https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/stock-art-consolidation-getty-to-buy-jupiterimages/)
https://www.selling-stock.com/Article/getty-images-to-acquire-jupiterimages-for-96 (https://www.selling-stock.com/Article/getty-images-to-acquire-jupiterimages-for-96)
Visual China Group acquired Corbis; Getty just has distribution rights outside China
https://petapixel.com/2016/01/22/corbis-images-sold-by-bill-gates-to-china-visual-group/ (https://petapixel.com/2016/01/22/corbis-images-sold-by-bill-gates-to-china-visual-group/)
https://www.dpreview.com/news/7484881039/corbis-images-content-to-be-distributed-by-getty (https://www.dpreview.com/news/7484881039/corbis-images-content-to-be-distributed-by-getty)
Shutterstock acquired BigStock in 2009
https://www.selling-stock.com/Article/shutterstock-announces-acquisition-of-bigstoc (https://www.selling-stock.com/Article/shutterstock-announces-acquisition-of-bigstoc)
There's an article from Selling Stock about other acquisitions (written in 2014)
https://www.selling-stock.com/Article/stock-agency-acquisitions (https://www.selling-stock.com/Article/stock-agency-acquisitions)
Also, SS bought Turbosquid in January 2021 https://blog.turbosquid.com/2021/01/26/shutterstock-to-acquire-turbosquid-the-worlds-largest-3d-marketplace/
2006 - Quit your day job!
I remember...f*** is that really nearly 20 years ago...?
I wish I had done stock full time for 20 years. My life would be very different now with 30k good files.
exactly,I also started late in 2018,30k files that had 20 years to mature,with countless many more interactions,by now it would have been very different!
I believe that Adobe is different from other agencies,because from what I see the way in which customer requests are managed and therefore sales works differently.
if this were not the case,it would not be possible to earn more already!
the total search for content on Adobe Stock right now reports 624 million,which is at least double of when contributors started to see a decrease in sales at other agencies.
that is,how is it possible that with 624 million content in December I made 73,5% more sales and 52,2% more earnings?
this wouldn't be possible in a "random way" with the amount of content there is on Adobe today.
and then I really don't think that a company like Adobe hasn't thought about the consequences of starting to accept AI content.
what do you think they did? they said: "but yes,let's start accepting millions of contents a week,then we'll see what happens and hope for the best!" :D
but of course not!Adobe certainly made a long-term projection and evaluated all the consequences of this choice.
this is why in my opinion it won't matter at all on Adobe whether there will be billions of contents in the future or not,because everything has simply already been thought out down to the smallest detail,and in fact you can already see it now.
and sorry if I derailed maybe too much from the main topic...my fault sorry! :D
Other than maybe Adobe buying Fotolia (and this is a big maybe) I can't think of any big acquisitions that were good for the contributors. I think the worst as I see it might be the purchase of StockXpert and Getty buying IS.
Quote from: Big Money on January 05, 2025, 01:44
Quote from: Pacesetter on January 05, 2025, 00:07
Should this proceed, it would appear the microstock industry battle lines are being drawn up into two with one being the conglomerate of iStock / Shutterstock and all its marketplaces and the other Adobe Stock.
I'm not a trader so have little understanding of it but wondering why Shutterstock would want to do this merger with iStock when they would be merging with a company that has a lot lower share price (currently GETY at $2.39 and SSTK at $31.47)?
For starters Getty has over 78 million share and SSTK as 35 million shares thus double the amount of SS.
Yes, and I wrote "Getty has 3 times the corporate value of SS, roughly. 3 Billion vs 1 Billion. Getty has double the stock value of SSTK. " That's why.
I don't really want to see the merger and I don't know if SSTK actually wants to merge, but it's the natural progression of a boom market. Many companies enter, they take profits, then there's a sorting out as the small ones get bought up or go out of business. There usually end up being 2 or 3 major providers that end up on top and some smaller ones that have specialized markets that survive in their own area.
I think of the computer games business when home computers and PCs first became popular. Companies founded on one product or a line of similar games. The single game companies, got bought out and merged into the big ones, or the smaller companies, disappeared. Look at who's left, and makes games and entertainment for Xbox and the rest of the consoles.
Here's something about Microstock. Pretty much all the same images, from all the same artists and sources are available on all the major agency sites. There's no reason, except price, for buyers to go to more than one place. If the agency they use, has the types of images that they use, that's the one they will buy from. The second reason might be choice, and who has the most images. Small agencies, have neither, in most instances. The small agencies can't survive against the big agency competition, that exists on volume with a smaller profit margin.
I still don't understand how so many small agencies are still in business. My only explanation is, they are paying artists so little, that there's still enough money to run the agency. Once there's not enough profit and the expenses exceed the income, they will disappear in a blink.
Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 06, 2025, 00:36
Here's something about Microstock. Pretty much all the same images, from all the same artists and sources are available on all the major agency sites.
Exactly right. This is one of several reasons why this merger doesn't make sense. But if happens, there are some interesting implications for contributor ports. Simple merge would not work because of duplicates. What takes precedence? Then, what would be front end facing contributors? Shutterstock is better by wide margin; but if Getty drives the merger they'd probably want to keep their model - once a month reporting ? Managed Vocabulary ? Etc.
I am quite certain merger will not happen. But it provides entertainment on Forums like this one.
Quote from: zeljkok on January 06, 2025, 03:15
Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 06, 2025, 00:36
Here's something about Microstock. Pretty much all the same images, from all the same artists and sources are available on all the major agency sites.
Exactly right. This is one of several reasons why this merger doesn't make sense. But if happens, there are some interesting implications for contributor ports. Simple merge would not work because of duplicates. What takes precedence? Then, what would be front end facing contributors? Shutterstock is better by wide margin; but if Getty drives the merger they'd probably want to keep their model - once a month reporting ? Managed Vocabulary ? Etc.
I am quite certain merger will not happen. But it provides entertainment on Forums like this one.
Corporate merger doesn't mean a website merger.
Quote from: YadaYadaYada on January 06, 2025, 15:44
Quote from: zeljkok on January 06, 2025, 03:15
Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 06, 2025, 00:36
Here's something about Microstock. Pretty much all the same images, from all the same artists and sources are available on all the major agency sites.
Exactly right. This is one of several reasons why this merger doesn't make sense. But if happens, there are some interesting implications for contributor ports. Simple merge would not work because of duplicates. What takes precedence? Then, what would be front end facing contributors? Shutterstock is better by wide margin; but if Getty drives the merger they'd probably want to keep their model - once a month reporting ? Managed Vocabulary ? Etc.
I am quite certain merger will not happen. But it provides entertainment on Forums like this one.
Corporate merger doesn't mean a website merger.
Yes, SS left Bigstock alone, and left Pond5 so far, except for cutting our percentages. Getty messed up IS, and renumbered all the assets to Getty format, when they created ESP. But the site is still iStock looking. PA media took over Alamy, if we didn't know, it looks like the same.
I'd agree with the "why would SS want to do this?" but I can see how a corporate merger could make both of them stronger, together, than each is, alone. SS is losing market share and customers, Getty is gaining buyer accounts, but not making more money. "Simple merge would not work because of duplicates." yes, that sure would be a mess.
And what of iStock Exclusives?
Fun to watch, I wouldn't want to try to guess why Getty is proposing this or why they think SS would accept. And then what?
Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 06, 2025, 17:17
And what of iStock Exclusives?
In theory, they could sell exclusive files on iStock, and all the rest on SS.
In practice, who knows? I've never been able to second-guess what Getty might do next.
Quote from: YadaYadaYada on January 06, 2025, 15:44
Corporate merger doesn't mean a website merger.
True. But accounting is completely different. Getty Fixed 15% vs SS Levels (+ Reset), once a month report vs real time downloads, etc. Does this stay as is? Do contributors still upload & specify vastly heterogeneous metadata on 2 sides? Are there still 2 copies of same asset even if there is single Getterstock behind? Exclusivity vs non-exclusivity. Where does the customer make the purchase if there are still 2 sites? Selling model (Price / Subscriptions etc) would have to be the same in order not to favour one side over the other from customer standpoint. Etc. These are non-trivial issues. It's different from when Big Fish (i.e. Getty) consumes (buys) small Fish (iStock), because now Fish is similar size.
For all of this single front (that includes "website merger") would make sense.
Both Getty and shutterstock operate several agencies and offer many different license and price types.
I don't think they need to merge it all into one site.
I think they both offer all content from all their agencies internally.
They must have a system to deal with duplicates for that.
Both customer groups, i.e. those with a contract from one of the SS companies or those with a contract to one of the Getty companies will have the opportunity to access millions of new fresh files.
Getty has a huge exclusive collection and Shutterstock has loads of content istock does not have because many producers don't upload there.
And for the istock exclusives and also those with a getty house contract that will mean loads of fresh new customers.
The complicated and different upload systems will probably stay for quite a while.
Even SS hasn't integrated ss p5 envato etc into one system.
I really didn't think this would happen, but now it's here. It will be really interesting to see how these 2 vastly heterogeneous ecosystems co-exist and whether there will be unified front end or not.
One thing is certain though: Race to the bottom just got twice as fast.
Nothing good for us will came from this merge
Quote from: pancaketom on January 04, 2025, 15:05
SS is one of the leaders in the price race to the bottom, Getty is one of the leaders in the percentage paid to the artist race to the bottom. Together they will deliver really exciting news.
. Not just lower commissions, but they'll probably reject more submissions as well.
Quote from: elliottcowand on January 07, 2025, 20:22
Not just lower commissions, but they'll probably reject more submissions as well.
What makes you think that? Not saying you are wrong, just curious.
So as an example, SS bought POND5 a while ago.
- Did an SS memberships allow access to POND5 assets?
- Did POND5 memberships allow access to SS assets?
- What exactly happened with that merger?
- Was it just a way to consolidate back-end services, reduce commissions, and therefore increase profit?
- What was different from the customer viewpoint as result of that takeover?
Quote from: wds on January 08, 2025, 03:54
- What exactly happened with that merger?
For us: they took 25% of the money of non-exclusives, 33% of the money of exclusives
Quote from: wds on January 08, 2025, 03:54
So as an example, SS bought POND5 a while ago.
- Did an SS memberships allow access to POND5 assets?
- Did POND5 memberships allow access to SS assets?
- What exactly happened with that merger?
- Was it just a way to consolidate back-end services, reduce commissions, and therefore increase profit?
- What was different from the customer viewpoint as result of that takeover?
For many, sales on pond5 have become zero. ;D ;D ;D
This is a little bit going off on a tangent sorry, but as I am a fractal artist I was interested to see a fractal used in the official Shutterstock PDF for investors. https://investor.shutterstock.com/static-files/de522e71-d1ac-4861-9427-49719876344b (https://investor.shutterstock.com/static-files/de522e71-d1ac-4861-9427-49719876344b) (the full page background for the Appendix slide). They appeared to have got the file number and artist credit wrong (!) but I managed to find the image at https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/conceptual-illustration-black-holes-merging-space-2099127601 (https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/conceptual-illustration-black-holes-merging-space-2099127601) and was amused that its description is "black holes merging". Maybe some of us can related to the black hole analogy, lol.
So....the rumours were true!
My sales on iStock have doubled since this merger was announced, and I haven't had a download on SS since the first news of the merger.
Quote from: Brasilnut on January 05, 2025, 02:35
Here's a timeline of major mergers and acquisitions since 2009 that I put together.
Have I overlooked any other ones?
Source: https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2025/01/04/breaking-news-getty-images-and-shutterstock-discuss-potential-merger/ (https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2025/01/04/breaking-news-getty-images-and-shutterstock-discuss-potential-merger/)
I thought about putting another column on "Has it benefited contributors", but it's very difficult to know for sure...except for perhaps the SS acquiring Pond5 one.
Updated chart, thanks Jo Ann for inputs.
Shutterstock Bought Rex Features in 2015 which was a direct competitor of Getty. https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/rex-features?msockid=2e522b4b6b636d5e2aa13b116a1d6c2e (https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/rex-features?msockid=2e522b4b6b636d5e2aa13b116a1d6c2e)
Talk about interesting merger conflicts.
Quote from: Year of the Dog on January 09, 2025, 14:09
My sales on iStock have doubled since this merger was announced, and I haven't had a download on SS since the first news of the merger.
I don't think it's related, might be just a coincidence. Mine are exactly the same
Quote from: ShadySue on January 06, 2025, 19:19
Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 06, 2025, 17:17
And what of iStock Exclusives?
In theory, they could sell exclusive files on iStock, and all the rest on SS.
In practice, who knows? I've never been able to second-guess what Getty might do next.
Yes, right all around. They could also sell SS on Getty, but they would have to drain the cesspool, remove the stolen content, take out the garbage, find and remove AI, and take out the duplicates, (how would they decide that?) before they could make anything useful, with integrity. If SS can't check for AI, stolen or Dupes, who's going to suddenly spend the time and money, to vet the collection, before it goes up for sale on Getty?
That could happen if Getty has an urge to create a curated SS collection, where they just pick and offer only those. It's much cheaper to just add a link on the bottom of the page.
The most likely outcome will be the simplest answer.
It's a corporate merger not a content merger, they will operate as divisions of the same corporation. They don't have to change what we're paid, as we are already below fair compensation and the uploads keep coming in by the millions. Getty is happy paying us 15% and having a system that's discouraging for people who upload spam or stolen images. Why would they want to change that?
As long as they offer growth and hope for gains to investors, the money will flow in, and that's all they care about. We and Microstock are an afterthought, not the main business. I don't know why people can't seem to grasp that. We don't matter. When someones asks, "don't they care about us?" or "if they paid more, they would get better quality" the answer is No, they don't care.
They don't care about us personally, they don't care about the crappy AI content that they accept, they don't care about timely or accurate reviews, or quality, they don't care about image theft or duplicates. All they care about is the business, profits and investors.
Yeah... 💯
Quote from: ShadySue on January 06, 2025, 19:19
I've never been able to second-guess what Getty might do next.
👍
Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 10, 2025, 18:17It's a corporate merger not a content merger
As I mentioned privately I can't see benefit coming out of this.
Content merger, in some shape or form, has to happen in order for this to make sense. Yes there are variations (iStock exclusives on Getty, rest on SS, etc etc) - but I tend to believe there will be some sort of 3rd, unified content platform. Naturally, this is not easy to implement (duplicates, crappy AI, list goes on). But this must have been discussed already. IT guys are probably hard on it as we speak.
Rest I agree with. They don't care about contributors, and why should they? It is about business and profit, anyone that believes otherwise is simply living in different dimension.
This merger was likely triggered in large part by Adobe rise as it took large share of the Market, and this is the response. If nothing, it should be interesting.
They already have internal platforms where customers can see everything from all the different agencies they own. They already know how to deal with duplicates. Or they don't care about them like you can see on shutterstock with all the stolen duplicates.
Nothing about this is new, they both have owned several platforms and agencies for years.
Now they just have to add the shutterrstock companies content into the already existing internal getty platforms.
The different agencies will get a ,,shuttertock by getty" label slapped on them, the way they do for unsplash or istock.
But from outside you cannot see that.
Of course it is possible they will completely overhaul their systems, with maybe also improving the getty upload system, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Here's an update that I've just published on the Brutally Honest Blog, including a corporate crap rating from all the announcements, brought by AI.
https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2025/01/11/getty-and-shutterstock-merger-what-it-means-for-contributors/
Something I thought of earlier, could the association of Shutterstock with iStock do some damage to iStock's reputation among its customers and therefore have adverse impacts on its business?
The end of the race to the bottom. Both collections will support each other and attract buyers, at higher Getty prices. This merger is going to be good for Microstock artists.
I suppose if they're no longer competing against each other on price then they can work together to stabilise prices. Continual lower selling prices is not good for the agency either. As long as our percentage of a sale doesn't decrease further then this merger might not be bad for contributors.
Let's hope so. The "race to the bottom" has gotten everyone (contributors and agencies) in trouble.
If the merger goes as planned, GETY / SSTK will have 70% of the photo market. Because of the archives and the collections, they will also control some specific images. If they are the biggest and most complete agency, combined, they can also control the prices for their images.
Canva can't offer those images, and the free sites can't either. Some of Adobes images, might be unique as artists have stopped supplying IS and SS.
Interesting post by someone who knows: https://petapixel.com/2025/01/12/stock-photographys-crossroads-can-a-getty-shutterstock-merger-fix-it/
AI: The Elephant in the Room
"To stay relevant, Getty/Shutterstock must find ways to better integrate AI capabilities into their platforms."
Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 16, 2025, 17:55
If the merger goes as planned, GETY / SSTK will have 70% of the photo market. Because of the archives and the collections, they will also control some specific images. If they are the biggest and most complete agency, combined, they can also control the prices for their images.
Canva can't offer those images, and the free sites can't either. Some of Adobes images, might be unique as artists have stopped supplying IS and SS.
Interesting post by someone who knows: https://petapixel.com/2025/01/12/stock-photographys-crossroads-can-a-getty-shutterstock-merger-fix-it/
AI: The Elephant in the Room
"To stay relevant, Getty/Shutterstock must find ways to better integrate AI capabilities into their platforms."
"70% of the photo market" Where did you get that number from? Plugged it out of thin air?
And Canva already has all Getty images!
Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 16, 2025, 17:55
If the merger goes as planned, GETY / SSTK will have 70% of the photo market. Because of the archives and the collections, they will also control some specific images. If they are the biggest and most complete agency, combined, they can also control the prices for their images.
Canva can't offer those images, and the free sites can't either. Some of Adobes images, might be unique as artists have stopped supplying IS and SS.
Interesting post by someone who knows: https://petapixel.com/2025/01/12/stock-photographys-crossroads-can-a-getty-shutterstock-merger-fix-it/
AI: The Elephant in the Room
"To stay relevant, Getty/Shutterstock must find ways to better integrate AI capabilities into their platforms."
Precisely,
in an oligopoly where competitors will not compete until death/ equal money, the chances of raising prices instead of lowering them will increase. This situation might just work and hopefully also for us, the contributors.
Quote from: amabu on January 16, 2025, 18:15
Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 16, 2025, 17:55
If the merger goes as planned, GETY / SSTK will have 70% of the photo market. Because of the archives and the collections, they will also control some specific images. If they are the biggest and most complete agency, combined, they can also control the prices for their images.
Canva can't offer those images, and the free sites can't either. Some of Adobes images, might be unique as artists have stopped supplying IS and SS.
Interesting post by someone who knows: https://petapixel.com/2025/01/12/stock-photographys-crossroads-can-a-getty-shutterstock-merger-fix-it/
AI: The Elephant in the Room
"To stay relevant, Getty/Shutterstock must find ways to better integrate AI capabilities into their platforms."
"70% of the photo market" Where did you get that number from? Plugged it out of thin air?
And Canva already has all Getty images!
Read the Blog post, I plucked it from there, and it was written by someone closer to the business and probably smarter than everyone in the forum, when it comes to understanding Microstock. I know he's way smarter than I'll ever be.
"This merger isn't about ambition; it's about survival. Together, Getty and Shutterstock will control an estimated 50-70% of the creative licensing market, but their challenges remain daunting."
" An Oligopoly Cemented
The stock photography market has long been an oligopoly, and the merger of Getty Images and Shutterstock will only solidify this. The key players remain:
Getty Images/Shutterstock (Merged Entity): Combining vast content libraries and operational scale.
Adobe Stock: Leveraging the Creative Cloud ecosystem for consistent growth.
Canva: While not a traditional competitor, its rise among casual users and SMBs impacts the lower end of the market."
I think he's right:
" What They Gain:
Market Power: Greater leverage with AI companies for licensing deals.
Cost Synergies: Potential operational efficiencies.
Pricing Control:
Ability to stabilize or even raise nano-stock pricing.
What They Risk:
Debt Overhang: Both companies bring significant financial baggage.
Contributor Backlash:
Lower royalties and exclusivity demands could alienate creators. Innovation Stagnation: Focus on integration may delay much-needed transformation."
Why would you think he is smarter than us?
Our income depends on stock, his doesn't.
And he is missing the important point: customers want ready made ai content, just like they want preshot images.
The agencies need a great ai media collection.
And they need a midjourney killer app.
I wouldn't classify this as an oligopoly, considering there are other agencies with a growing selection, such as Storyblocks and Artlist. Although they may not provide the same range of choices, they still compete.
Quote from: cobalt on January 16, 2025, 20:42
Why would you think he is smarter than us?
I based my opinion on his credentials.
About the author: Vadym Nekhai is the former CEO of Depositphotos, where he started as the Chief Marketing Officer at the company in 2012. He served as Vice President of the organization after it was acquired by Vista Print, now known as simply Vista, from 2021 until 2024.I think he might know how the Microstock business operates, from an insider view, knowing the agencies and the competition.
Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 16, 2025, 19:39
" What They Gain:
Market Power: Greater leverage with AI companies for licensing deals.
Cost Synergies: Potential operational efficiencies.
Pricing Control: Ability to stabilize or even raise nano-stock pricing.
What They Risk:
Debt Overhang: Both companies bring significant financial baggage.
Contributor Backlash: Lower royalties and exclusivity demands could alienate creators.
Innovation Stagnation: Focus on integration may delay much-needed transformation."
What is CMA looking at? And I'll point out, it's not US or our well-being or our contracts.
The CMA reviews business mergers to ensure they do not harm competition and do not reduce consumer choice or increase prices. They look at the following criteria to determine if a merger should be investigated:
The business being acquired has a UK turnover of at least £100 million.
The businesses have a combined share of at least 25% of a good or service in the UK, or a region of it, and the merger would increase this share.
One of the businesses supplies at least 33% of a good or service in the UK and has a UK annual turnover of over £350 million.
The other business must also have a connection to the UK.
The CMA's approach is voluntary, meaning businesses do not have to inform them about their mergers, but they can choose to do so if the merger meets the legal criteria. The CMA's investigation includes gathering evidence from merging businesses and others, such as customers or competitors, to decide if the merger will affect competition. They don't care about AI, or what we are paid, or percentages or contracts with supplier. They don't care about contributors TOS. That's not what they do or what they investigate. CMA stands for the Competition and Markets Authority, the UK's primary regulator for competition and consumer protection.
Stockprices:
Shutterstock
1 month -6.82%
3 monhts -13.55%
6 months -26.11%
2 years -68.33%
Getty images
1 month -24.85%
3 monhts -48.30%
6 months -62.24%
2 years -86.24%
They are going nowhere then rock bottom.
🚨 URGENT: CMA OFFICIALLY INVITES COMMENTS UNTIL 18 MARCH!
Contributors have been heard and it has already influenced the course of the investigation
An experienced stock contributor with many years in the industry, representing in part the interests of the wider creator community, submitted formal evidence to the CMA Phase 2 investigation on 26 February 2026. These are the first known formal submissions by an individual contributor in this case in any jurisdiction.
Several key arguments from those submissions have already been reflected in the regulator's actions.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) extended its final decision deadline on the Getty Images / Shutterstock merger by 8 weeks — to 14 June 2026 — in order to further assess the impact of generative AI on the market. The CMA has also identified the AI training data market as a separate area of competitive concern.
The CMA is now formally inviting contributors, photographers, and industry participants to submit comments on potential remedies.
Why this matters for every contributor:
• royalty rates could decline further without competition between platforms
• one company would control the world's largest licensed dataset for AI training
• contributors could effectively lose the ability to opt out of AI training
• account suspensions and content removals would be concentrated within a single platform
• contract terms could worsen without credible alternatives
📅 Deadline for comments: 18 March 2026, 17:00 UK time
Even a short email can make a difference.
Full explanation and documents:
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/74f246f4-3fb1-4569-8f15-eba49417283b?fbclid=IwY2xjawQgDuNleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFXb2VsbTIybDFib2pPdnpoc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHu1OYplZNIZD2MgI5aAwcyHRlJW-52qapAGgzPvzanHeU76Uty-Nr90jn4rw_aem_HtaO0-gl3542XkZT-QEMpA
📧 Send comments to:
[email protected]If you are a contributor to Getty Images or Shutterstock, this is the moment to make your voice heard.
Full guide + AI prompt to generate your letter in minutes:
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/dbbecd73-e63d-478c-ab64-4713f95bc505?fbclid=IwY2xjawQgEO9leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFXb2VsbTIybDFib2pPdnpoc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHqNIpQHUypwJU8ygAkwTkBOg3_dMuPGJIxhBgx0bzLT25-aTFQGqf4VPUvx1_aem_GgyNSHE8bJKKtunl9iq-xQ
Quote from: SimonSays on March 12, 2026, 21:05
Stockprices:
Shutterstock
1 month -6.82%
3 monhts -13.55%
6 months -26.11%
2 years -68.33%
Getty images
1 month -24.85%
3 monhts -48.30%
6 months -62.24%
2 years -86.24%
They are going nowhere then rock bottom.
That's a good summary. They don't appear to be going anywhere, and we can only hope that something they put together will save what's left. Otherwise we will not have anything at all from anywhere. Well some from Adobe and some from Alamy, but Microstock will be dead.
You're upset because if there's a merger you won't have a choice between SS, which you dropped years ago, or IS which you don't like either. Is that right?
CMA doesn't care about anything in your royalty, AI or what your platform choices are. They only look into competition in the business for consumers.
"A single company will control over 1 billion licensed assets
Contributors will have no alternative platforms of comparable scale to switch to
Royalty rates can be cut again — with no viable competitor to move to
Your content will be used to train AI models without your consent and without direct compensation"
You got suspended at Adobe, didn't you?
Quote from: Uncle Pete on March 14, 2026, 01:13
Quote from: SimonSays on March 12, 2026, 21:05
Stockprices:
Shutterstock
1 month -6.82%
3 monhts -13.55%
6 months -26.11%
2 years -68.33%
Getty images
1 month -24.85%
3 monhts -48.30%
6 months -62.24%
2 years -86.24%
They are going nowhere then rock bottom.
That's a good summary. They don't appear to be going anywhere, and we can only hope that something they put together will save what's left. Otherwise we will not have anything at all from anywhere. Well some from Adobe and some from Alamy, but Microstock will be dead.
What is your port like on Adobe? My port on Adobe is smaller than on Shutterstock yet so far this year 2026 my earnings on Adobe are
9.3x that of Shutterstock. For the year 2025, earnings on Adobe were 2.5x that of Shutterstock. It's clear which agency more customers are migrating to and buying from and other contributors show similar sales and income trends.
what happens when you merge two pieces of crap together? You get one big piece of crap.
Quote from: Big Money on March 16, 2026, 13:17
what happens when you merge two pieces of crap together? You get one big piece of crap.
And twice as many dung flies! ;D
Quote from: Pacesetter on March 16, 2026, 04:54
Quote from: Uncle Pete on March 14, 2026, 01:13
Quote from: SimonSays on March 12, 2026, 21:05
Stockprices:
Shutterstock
1 month -6.82%
3 monhts -13.55%
6 months -26.11%
2 years -68.33%
Getty images
1 month -24.85%
3 monhts -48.30%
6 months -62.24%
2 years -86.24%
They are going nowhere then rock bottom.
That's a good summary. They don't appear to be going anywhere, and we can only hope that something they put together will save what's left. Otherwise we will not have anything at all from anywhere. Well some from Adobe and some from Alamy, but Microstock will be dead.
What is your port like on Adobe? My port on Adobe is smaller than on Shutterstock yet so far this year 2026 my earnings on Adobe are 9.3x that of Shutterstock. For the year 2025, earnings on Adobe were 2.5x that of Shutterstock. It's clear which agency more customers are migrating to and buying from and other contributors show similar sales and income trends.
Personally there's a problem trying to compare. Adobe has illustrations that SSTK doesn't. SSTK has Editorial that Adobe doesn't and is missing most of those illustrations. IS has a little of the illustration collection and the photos, but no Editorial. Easier for me is Adobe is holding and going up. IS is flat, SSTK is not only terrible for download numbers but also for the credits paid for those downloads.
Quote from: Big Money on March 16, 2026, 13:17
what happens when you merge two pieces of crap together? You get one big piece of crap.
While true not quite the situation we have here. Two heavyweights are punching it out, based on price. Both are getting beat up quite badly, only hurting each other. If they merge and fight together, they can take out all the Middle Weights and Lightweights. What's going on now is Getty and SSTK are in a constant battle for the same market, in editorial images. They are trying to hold or gain customers, with lower prices and devalued subscriptions. They are beating each other, trying to control the market share.
Once they are one, if that happens, they don't have to cut profits or prices and the consumers will have to come to them, for the best quality and best choices. I know that people here are concerned with Microstock, but that's not the major part of Getty or SSTK. Big business, news and editorial makes up the majority of the business. Microstock is a side effort.
Adobe has held up their prices and commission paid. They have held at 33-35%. Alamy has never dropped down to Microstock and pays a fair rate of 20-40% (and yes there are those distribution sales which cut into that). iStock pays 15% or 20% for Illustrations. SSTK makes a claim of higher percentages, but those are a higher percentage of such a low price, that out bottom line is so despicable that they had to set a 10¢ minimum, or we'd be getting less.
Once Getty takes over SSTK, and merger is a polite term, Getty is taking over SSTK, it's a stock buy-out, they won't have to continue the race to the bottom. They won't need to fight each other, and the other two sizeable agencies left, are just as happy, to stop the price war and devaluation. Every one of them can hold and make more.
That's where the obvious part comes into the picture. All of these corporations want to make more money. They don't want to sell for less. They want to charge more and have a bigger market share. In other words, there's no reason to cut prices to consumers, any further than they have already. And there's a potential for raising the prices, because of increased value. The big customers, business and professionals are willing to pay for the images they need, and will. The small businesses and individuals are not the major part of the sales and profits.
ps The large buyers and editorial prefer real images, not AI.
In the end, my prediction is, this merger will be good for us and the health of the stock image business. If it goes through. I also predict the last of the parasites and price cutters that have driven our market into poverty, will be looking for other ways to make money. Microstock will no longer appeal to them.
The above opinion and conclusions are based on the CMA investigation. You can read it here: https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/getty-images-slash-shutterstock-merger-inquiry (https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/getty-images-slash-shutterstock-merger-inquiry)
This part is the stock customers survey data: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/699c35ce882eb23165f12707/DJS_report__Stock_customer_survey_23.2.26_2.pdf (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/699c35ce882eb23165f12707/DJS_report__Stock_customer_survey_23.2.26_2.pdf)
"The research covered by this report focused on surveying a random sample of those who had
purchased, and/or downloaded stock content (images or videos) from the Parties in the last six to
twelve months, covering four customer groups (strata) as explained below"
I found this interesting. "While most anticipate increasing their use of AI, a minority do not plan to use AI at all, citing concerns around authenticity, quality, licensing and company policy."
HISTORIC TURNING POINT
The UK Government Just Published OUR Voices Against the Getty-Shutterstock Merger!
Friends and colleagues! 📷🎨
A massive THANK YOU to everyone who didn't stay silent, took the time out of your day, and sent your evidence to the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) against the proposed Shutterstock and Getty Images merger.
Yesterday, a truly historic moment happened. The CMA officially published our evidence on the UK Government website. Think about that for a second - in the official registry of a major antitrust investigation, the voices of independent creators are now listed right alongside formal complaints from giants like the BBC!
My analytical report and all of your heartfelt letters have successfully pierced through the corporate PR machine. Together, we proved to the commission what's really going on: this merger isn't about "protecting the industry from AI." It's about creating a massive monopsony that will allow them to unilaterally slash our royalties and scrape our metadata for AI training for free, without any accountability.
Right now, their corporate lawyers are desperately trying to convince the regulator that we "have plenty of other platforms to go to." But thanks to our collective action, the CMA now sees the brutal reality of our market.
Thank you to each and every one of you. You proved that the contributor community is not just a faceless, powerless resource. We are a real force that corporations and governments have to reckon with.
The investigation is entering its final and most critical phase (Phase 2). Let's keep our fingers crossed for the final decision. The fight for our rights continues!
Many thanks,
Contributor I
Link to the official CMA document publication: https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/getty-images-slash-shutterstock-merger-inquiry (https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/getty-images-slash-shutterstock-merger-inquiry)
Responses to the invitation to comment on remedies
BBC response (PDF, 190KB) (27.3.26)
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c6743a432177621536099c/BBC_response_to_remedies_invitation_to_comment_27.3.26.pdf
Contributor I response (PDF,382KB) (27.3.26
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c6745a471d520038d0f77c/Contributor_I_27.3.26.pdf
(https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c6745a471d520038d0f77c/Contributor_I_27.3.26.pdf)
Todd Williams response (PDF, 77KB) (27.3.26)
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c67474432177621536099d/Todd_Williams_response_to_ITCR_27.3.26.pdf
(https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c67474432177621536099d/Todd_Williams_response_to_ITCR_27.3.26.pdf)
Responses to the interim report
Parties (Shutterstock-Getty) joint response (PDF, 778KB) (27.3.26)
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c672cbb66ff902f454432b/Parties_joint_response_to_Interim_Report.pdf
(https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c672cbb66ff902f454432b/Parties_joint_response_to_Interim_Report.pdf)
Contributor responses (PDF, 898KB) (27.3.26)
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c67283cdfd19de13d0f794/Contributor_responses_to_the_interim_report_27_March_2026.pdf
(https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c67283cdfd19de13d0f794/Contributor_responses_to_the_interim_report_27_March_2026.pdf)
Market participant A response (PDF, 85KB) (27.3.26)
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c672a24321776215360999/Market_Participant_A.pdf
(https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c672a24321776215360999/Market_Participant_A.pdf)
NewsX response (PDF, 220KB) (27.3.26)
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c672b6432177621536099a/NewsX.pdf (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c672b6432177621536099a/NewsX.pdf)
Nice bunch of reports and some interesting letters. You do realize that CMA is looking into competition in the Editorial Market, not our pay or contracts? So if you wanted to write letters and protest the merger based on fruit bat health or the threat to their survival, that would be just as relevant. But have your fun. This merger will become reality within three months.
"1.10 The IR's assumption that [REDACTED]. Excluding Splash News and Backgrid, Shutterstock's
core editorial business is operating at minus [REDACTED] EBITDA and losing on average
~£[REDACTED] in each of the past three years globally.14 Editorial is peripheral to Shutterstock's
core operations, accounting for less than [REDACTED] of global revenues particularly as the
company faces significant pressures in its creative business (as acknowledged by the IR). Such
losses are a significant burden on a company that had a total net income of ~£[REDACTED] and
~£[REDACTED] in 2024 and 2025 respectively15 and has lost [REDACTED] of its market
capitalisation since October 2024."
Getty is acquiring a loser, not taking over to create a more profitable monopoly.
Quote from: Uncle Pete on March 29, 2026, 17:05
Getty is acquiring a loser, not taking over to create a more profitable monopoly.
Even if acquiring whats currently a "loser" - by acquiring and thus eliminating a major competitor that they're planning on eventually becoming a more profitable monopoly.
Stockmarket last month:
SS down 3.71%
Gettys down 8.45%
This upon their incredible losses the last few years. No investor has faith anymore in these companies. In five years SS lost 82% of it's value and Getty's 92%.
Even the merger will not solve it. There is nothing to salvage. No money (investors), no company.
We should be happy with the plus 90 cents sales from Adobe and hope they won't slash it once the other two are gone.
Quote from: SimonSays on March 29, 2026, 20:24
Stockmarket last month:
SS down 3.71%
Gettys down 8.45%
This upon their incredible losses the last few years. No investor has faith anymore in these companies. In five years SS lost 82% of it's value and Getty's 92%.
Even the merger will not solve it. There is nothing to salvage. No money (investors), no company.
We should be happy with the plus 90 cents sales from Adobe and hope they won't slash it once the other two are gone.
You have to wonder if the downtrend they are experiencing is due to the "race to the bottom" with stock pricing.
Quote from: wds on March 29, 2026, 21:54
Quote from: SimonSays on March 29, 2026, 20:24
Stockmarket last month:
SS down 3.71%
Gettys down 8.45%
This upon their incredible losses the last few years. No investor has faith anymore in these companies. In five years SS lost 82% of it's value and Getty's 92%.
Even the merger will not solve it. There is nothing to salvage. No money (investors), no company.
We should be happy with the plus 90 cents sales from Adobe and hope they won't slash it once the other two are gone.
You have to wonder if the downtrend they are experiencing is due to the "race to the bottom" with stock pricing.
Yes, I would assume investors invest $$$ to make $$$. If the stock is making less $$$ no matter what tricks are done, then investors would naturally withdraw from investing in the stock. Value of the stock goes down following the decline in profits.
Quote from: SimonSays on March 29, 2026, 20:24
Stockmarket last month:
SS down 3.71%
Gettys down 8.45%
This upon their incredible losses the last few years. No investor has faith anymore in these companies. In five years SS lost 82% of it's value and Getty's 92%.
Even the merger will not solve it. There is nothing to salvage. No money (investors), no company.
We should be happy with the plus 90 cents sales from Adobe and hope they won't slash it once the other two are gone.
Yes, because SSTK has lost money for the last few years. That's not just a trick because we're underpaid, or being cheated and lied to, the company is losing customers and losing money.
Getty is another story. Getty was already in debt. went private, sold, H&F took all they could out of the business and dumped them. But the stock holders in H&F made money and got dividends. Getty bought themselves back, in a round about way. They couldn't easily go public again, because of the amount of debt still owed, and the profits were less than the debt payments. Getty got some investors to finance a SPAC =
(Special Purpose Acquisition Company) is a "blank cheque" company created to raise capital through an IPO with the sole purpose of acquiring a private company and taking it public. Without long details, it's a promise that the company will be worth a specific amount on a future date. Then after the SPAC Getty went public. I believe the promised value was $10 a share. It's not there.
If either of these was making money, they wouldn't be interested in a merger like this. My view is, this is an effort to save SSTK from going under. As for Getty they have some good backing and deep pockets and a good library with their archives. Not just the news service, but in the long term, Getty bought many collections and historical archives. They own a majority of the important artist photos, news photos, records and documentary images, and can make some profits from that, over time.
On an aside Getty is also digitizing photo collections that they acquired and has bee doing that for years. They are preserving history and photos from many exclusive and interesting sources.
Quote from: Pacesetter on March 30, 2026, 11:19
Yes, I would assume investors invest $$$ to make $$$. If the stock is making less $$$ no matter what tricks are done, then investors would naturally withdraw from investing in the stock. Value of the stock goes down following the decline in profits.
Yes it's that simple. Investors are not blind and are not idiots. SSTK has been losing money for three years. The only way they made anything look good when Jon left and Stan came in, was to cut our commissions, and feed us a line of BS about how the better people would be rewarded. Anyone who believed that pay us dimes was going to make anyone more, or the phony commission scheme based on artificial levels, with pretty percentages, needs to look at real dollars, not promises and percentages.
The race to the bottom is over. They have ruined the entire market by price cutting and competition, that was based on who's has the most at the lowest price. We are selling a commodity, in most cases, not quality or art. AI just made it easy for the image factories to pump out more product, to compete with any of us individuals. Who would have ever thought that getting a flat 25¢ for a download was "good". And now, I get 33-66-99 cents (round number) from Adobe and that's the quality agency.
This merger will help us in the long run, by eliminating one more competitor. SSTK will be gone. For those who always hated them for the subscriptions, you should be cheering that the subscription model has died. The rest of the parasite agencies are just working on minimal staff to make what they can. They will be shutting down soon. Those agencies are already making us little and doing nothing beneficial except diluting the market.
Here's the bottom line:
Adobe
Alamy
Getty
Will be dividing the Microstock business.
Adobe 30-33%
Alamy 20-40%
Getty 15-20%
The standard contract terms for the near future.
Final CMA Verdict: Ultimatum for Shutterstock and Getty ImagesOfficial Sources:— UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) Official Release (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-conditionally-clears-getty-merger-with-shutterstock)
— Shutterstock Annual & Quarterly Reports (SEC Filings) (https://investor.shutterstock.com/financial-information/annual-reports)
1. Creators' Voices Heard
- The regulator rejected the lawyers' arguments regarding "Relevant Customer Benefits" and protection from AI.
- The CMA acknowledged: there is no evidence of benefits to contributors.
2. Ultimatum: Sale of the Entire Editorial Business
- The merger is permitted only under the condition of the sale of Shutterstock's entire editorial business: the Rex Features, Backgrid, and Splash News brands.
- Shutterstock will lose $32.7 million in global Editorial revenue (based on 2025 results). Of this: $11.7 million — Rex Features and Shutterstock brands; $21.0 million — Backgrid and Splash content.
3. Financial Troubles and Lawsuits
- Merger Costs (Shutterstock): $34.9 million spent in 2025. An additional $7.2 million went to regulatory and legal processes in Q1 2026.
- Merger Costs (Getty Images): Direct merger-related expenses in 2025 reached $45.7 million (plus $36.4 million in debt refinancing fees). $640.7 million remains locked in escrow accounts for the deal.
- Total Capital Burned: To date, the two corporations have collectively spent $124.2 million on direct transactional costs.
- Shareholder Lawsuits: The Johnson and Weiss cases were filed in the New York Supreme Court following the April 30, 2025 proxy statement. The board is accused of withholding material information.
- FTC Fines: Due to subscription manipulation, Shutterstock reserved $28 million in Q1 2026 for upcoming regulatory penalties.
- Debt Burden: Getty Images' total debt stands at $2 billion.
4. The Real Goal — Datasets
- The primary strategy driver through 2027 is selling the combined content database as legal datasets for AI training.
- The main targeted method for cutting operational costs remains slashing contributor payouts.
Bottom Line for Creators: Risk of Royalty Cuts is at an All-Time HighThe corporations are caught in a vise: lawsuits from their own investors, fraud investigations, $2 billion in debt, and the forced divestment of an entire business segment. Under these conditions, the risk that they will attempt to protect their profit margins through
further cuts to creator royalties is higher than ever.
Here's an idea. Since there are so few players and they are seemingly having a tough time making a profitable business. How about raising the price of their product?
Especially in a world where the "premium stock" suppliers charge a lot more for a similar product and seem to be able to make a business out of it.
Actually, Shutterstock has agreed to pay $35 million to settle U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that it misled consumers about its subscription plans and made cancellation difficult. Decided three days ago.
I can't find any Johnson or Weiss cases, but just another point: You file with the County Clerk's Office, depending on the case type and your status, and the Supreme Court is not the direct filing point. The Clerk assigns the case to the correct judge once it's processed.
If they cut royalties even more, where is the good quality content going to come from?
Just look at the crap SS is now forced to accept, because a lot of good content is no longer going there.
Ai companies don't need junk, they can scrape that for free from social media and the public internet. They coem to stock agencies because they want quality images.
If the ais are trained on crappy images, the output will be crappy.
Quote from: Uncle Pete on May 16, 2026, 17:49
I can't find any Johnson or Weiss cases, but just another point: You file with the County Clerk's Office, depending on the case type and your status, and the Supreme Court is not the direct filing point. The Clerk assigns the case to the correct judge once it's processed.
Johnson v. Shutterstock, Inc., et al., Index No. 682860/2025
Weiss v. Shutterstock, Inc., et al., Index No. 652853/2025
(filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, Commercial Division (the "Johnson Action") and Weiss v. Shutterstock, Inc., et al., 652853/2025 at ECF No. 1, filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, Commercial Division (the "Weiss Action", and together with the Johnson Action, the "Stockholder Actions")
Quote from: cobalt on May 16, 2026, 18:24
If they cut royalties even more, where is the good quality content going to come from?
Just look at the crap SS is now forced to accept, because a lot of good content is no longer going there.
Ai companies don't need junk, they can scrape that for free from social media and the public internet. They coem to stock agencies because they want quality images.
If the ais are trained on crappy images, the output will be crappy.
Search results on Shutterstock are flooded with junk already. This is a deliberate financial policy by the company to squeeze maximum profit for their shareholders.
If you read their official SEC filings and investor presentations, the whole truth about the algorithm and royalty tiers comes out:
Top-tier creators are bad for their margins. Shutterstock explicitly states in its reports that contributor payouts are their largest operating expense (SEC Form 10-K, Item 7). If the algorithm puts a top-tier contributor on the first page, SS has to pay them up to 40% per sale. But if they push a newcomer's junk content to the front, they only pay 15%. The search algorithm is tuned for the company's wallet, not for artistic quality.
The tier reset policy. In their reports, SS openly admits that earnings are now strictly tied to annual volume (Form 10-K, Item 1). This reset was invented for one purpose only: to slash our earnings and redirect those millions of dollars into investor dividends and stock buybacks. They are intentionally stopping us from growing our tiers.
The "Shutterstock 2027" strategy cuts contributors out completely. Look at their official long-range targets. They write in black and white that integrating GenAI is aimed directly at "lower cost of content creation." They don't plan to sell your premium work. Their goal is to shift buyers to their own AI tools, where SS keeps 100% of the money without sharing it with anyone.
They don't care about quality, they just want data. SS no longer worries that the marketplace has turned into a dump. They are now selling the raw database (our images, tags, and keywords) to tech giants for AI training.
Even the millions of images rejected during review are essentially free data capital for them.
These are the biggest suppliers with the biggest and best collections. If they raise prices, what recourse will their customers have but to shell out a little more money?
Yes, but they re unable to retain and grow their customer base. They spent over 500 million dollars buying up places like envato, pond5 and others, but if you read the reports they have less customers than before.
They are masking it a little with ai training money but it is not preventing them slipping down.
Now they are ,,merging" with getty, basically getty is taking over.
Their entire library is poisoned with mass amounts of ai. They supposedly do not take ai from contribtors, but shutterstock is absolutely flooded with it.
But if ai is trained on ai content it destroys the quality.
So even the we only want to be an ai dataset business is not working.
They also don't have a good ai generator.
So, they have a library filled with crappy files, customers cannot filter out ai with one click like on Adobe.
It is simply very badly run.
Adobe and istock changed nothing and customers are moving there.
Once these two merge everything will go to Getty management and Getty payment systems. We'll be 15% no levels no more Shutterstock cheating us. Look at the history of everything iStock has done since they were bought by Getty.
"Johnson v. Shutterstock, Inc., et al." is listed in Shutterstock's May 30, 2025 SEC 8‑K filing as one of the litigation matters related to the company's proposed merger with Getty Images SEC.gov. The filing identifies it alongside other shareholder and individual actions, but does not provide the full factual or procedural details of the case.
Quote from: Recards on May 17, 2026, 00:51
Quote from: Uncle Pete on May 16, 2026, 17:49
I can't find any Johnson or Weiss cases, but just another point: You file with the County Clerk's Office, depending on the case type and your status, and the Supreme Court is not the direct filing point. The Clerk assigns the case to the correct judge once it's processed.
Johnson v. Shutterstock, Inc., et al., Index No. 682860/2025
Weiss v. Shutterstock, Inc., et al., Index No. 652853/2025
(filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, Commercial Division (the "Johnson Action") and Weiss v. Shutterstock, Inc., et al., 652853/2025 at ECF No. 1, filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, Commercial Division (the "Weiss Action", and together with the Johnson Action, the "Stockholder Actions")
Thank you, they are both stockholders filing for information that was missing/left out of the financial disclosure. At least that's the way I read it.
Getty is still and has been in debt for more than what they earn. Or in other words, paying off their debt, what they owe in payments, is more than what they earn. SSTK is not going to make more, they keep making less each year. The merger is better than what they have now and potentially better than what we have now. SSTK isn't going to pay us more, while they keep losing money and owing. At least Getty has a set commission schedule with the 15% and 20% instead of the fake SSTK how we'll, make more by being paid less. The big lie that very few of us or anyone else, ever believed when Stan announced the "Exciting News".