https://www.ft.com/content/d958b81f-b0a5-4373-b7ff-471cb4b290d8 (https://www.ft.com/content/d958b81f-b0a5-4373-b7ff-471cb4b290d8)
Quote from: synthetick on November 28, 2025, 08:55
https://www.ft.com/content/d958b81f-b0a5-4373-b7ff-471cb4b290d8 (https://www.ft.com/content/d958b81f-b0a5-4373-b7ff-471cb4b290d8)
Behind paywall. Free https://www.uktech.news/news/government-and-policy/getty-could-ditch-uk-if-regulators-block-shutterstock-takeover-20251128 (https://www.uktech.news/news/government-and-policy/getty-could-ditch-uk-if-regulators-block-shutterstock-takeover-20251128)
The Getty CEO said plans to acquire Shutterstock are necessary as AI picture and video generation platforms threaten the entire stock image market.
Quote from: Year of the Dog on November 28, 2025, 12:02
Quote from: synthetick on November 28, 2025, 08:55
https://www.ft.com/content/d958b81f-b0a5-4373-b7ff-471cb4b290d8 (https://www.ft.com/content/d958b81f-b0a5-4373-b7ff-471cb4b290d8)
Behind paywall. Free https://www.uktech.news/news/government-and-policy/getty-could-ditch-uk-if-regulators-block-shutterstock-takeover-20251128 (https://www.uktech.news/news/government-and-policy/getty-could-ditch-uk-if-regulators-block-shutterstock-takeover-20251128)
The Getty CEO said plans to acquire Shutterstock are necessary as AI picture and video generation platforms threaten the entire stock image market.
Hmmm, that would be bad for me as a large proportion of my sales, unsurprisingly, is from the UK.
However, if Getty (and SS) pulled out of the UK, would that not leave a 'lack of competition', especially in editorial?
BTW, I wonder, and I don't expect anyone outwith Getty knows, how much content there is on SS which isn't on Getty? I'm guessing quite a large proportion of SS contributors* send the same images to iStock, as (AFAICR) there has never been an advantage to being exclusive at SS.
*Except for some people who pulled their iS content as a result of G shenanigans at various times.
Quote from: ShadySue on November 28, 2025, 17:28
Quote from: Year of the Dog on November 28, 2025, 12:02
Quote from: synthetick on November 28, 2025, 08:55
https://www.ft.com/content/d958b81f-b0a5-4373-b7ff-471cb4b290d8 (https://www.ft.com/content/d958b81f-b0a5-4373-b7ff-471cb4b290d8)
Behind paywall. Free https://www.uktech.news/news/government-and-policy/getty-could-ditch-uk-if-regulators-block-shutterstock-takeover-20251128 (https://www.uktech.news/news/government-and-policy/getty-could-ditch-uk-if-regulators-block-shutterstock-takeover-20251128)
The Getty CEO said plans to acquire Shutterstock are necessary as AI picture and video generation platforms threaten the entire stock image market.
Hmmm, that would be bad for me as a large proportion of my sales, unsurprisingly, is from the UK.
However, if Getty (and SS) pulled out of the UK, would that not leave a 'lack of competition', especially in editorial?
BTW, I wonder, and I don't expect anyone outwith Getty knows, how much content there is on SS which isn't on Getty? I'm guessing quite a large proportion of SS contributors* send the same images to iStock, as (AFAICR) there has never been an advantage to being exclusive at SS.
*Except for some people who pulled their iS content as a result of G shenanigans at various times.
And there were also people who pulled their SSTK because of dimes and data training. I won't pretend to have any real idea, how many, but I know there was a big group who dropped IS, way back, and what's probably a larger group that dropped SS recently. If I had to make a guess, including the fact that some people stuck with IS and are exclusive, I'd still estimate that 70% of the images, are identical on both. (unless I'm wrong about the number of exclusives and there are more than I'm guessing)
Then there's another question. How much of the collection on SSTK is something that IS actually needs or wants. There's sure a lot of Crapstock on SS and IS early on, used to be stricter on reviews. Now, not as much.
The article and the quote from Peters, tells me, that Getty wants to make sure they are still in the race to the bottom, in the latest form. ""This transaction is about taking a Shutterstock business that is in decline in terms of its licensing revenues and being impacted by AI, combining it with Getty and creating scale. We can't go buy a Google. We can't go buy an OpenAI. So we need to compete in a different way.""
Scale, translates to having the biggest collection. That's where SSTK built the numbers, and that's why Getty wants to merge with them. If I'm right, it's all about numbers, not the best collection. But I think Getty has a pretty exclusive collection, as they are now, and merging with SSTK, they will get some other interesting and exclusive assets.
Alamy is UK based and does OK for many people. No volume, but earnings, each year, at least for me, are better than DT, P5, and the rest I supply, all added together. Adobe beats that. SSTK used to be better and has fallen below. One sale on Alamy, equals a whole year on DT, and yes, that's mostly the same images.
Getty is in AI and so is SSTK, which will increase their modern race to the bottom, by creating more AI that competes with their own images, as well as the other AI.
I'd love to have Getty/SS leave the UK - maybe I'd get a few more Alamy sales. It would be even better if they left N America and Asia and Europe.
I think that the main thing SS has that Getty doesn't (yet) is a massive amount of AI slop along with some actually good AI content. Probably a fair amount of video on SS/P5 that isn't on Getty either. Getty is a royal PITA to upload to and 15% is a real kick in the teeth.
Shutterstock closed my account in 2020 over the royalty cut protests, so I have no current personal data on the proportion of UK business.
I just asked Deep Meta to tell me my total UK sales so far in 2025 - $27.63!! So I'd be just fine with them pulling out of the UK
Not sure how they'd actually implement that with a world-wide online agency business though. VPNs let people try to avoid all sorts of region-based limits and rules and if I pay via a service like PayPal how do you track where I am?
Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on November 28, 2025, 18:37
Shutterstock closed my account in 2020 over the royalty cut protests, so I have no current personal data on the proportion of UK business.
I just asked Deep Meta to tell me my total UK sales so far in 2025 - $27.63!! So I'd be just fine with them pulling out of the UK
Not sure how they'd actually implement that with a world-wide online agency business though. VPNs let people try to avoid all sorts of region-based limits and rules and if I pay via a service like PayPal how do you track where I am?
I think many people would agree with all of that. Also, I think Getty is just posturing and threatening.
"Screw you guys, I'm going home!"At this point I don't seriously care what SSTK or Getty do. I really don't see them as a threat to free economics, that the UK board needs to limit to protect anyone or anything. I'm against too much government interference in business and commerce. I don't see either as a useful source of income, for myself.
We have Getty throwing out help, to a sinking ship. We all know and recognize how the days of Microstock, as a profitable business, are over. Not just for us, but for SSTK as well.
I agree with CMA that Getty will have a near monopoly for editorial content. And they will use the market dominance to lower royalties for creators. Mind you the 15/20% royalty on istock is already rock bottom.
But if they become the only serious editorial outlet, creators will not have much choices and must supply them.
The ai threat is not the issue, the problem is control of the editorial market.
I hope they spin off pond5 again. That would be a great solution of the problem.
But of course the pond5 exclusive video content is what they want...Getty does not need more images, they have a great collection and fantastic exclusive creators.
But they have very little good videos. Not surprising because they pay so little, and also sell videos for less than images many times. On Adobe the lowest for a video is 2.80, on istock it is 6 cents?
And the volume of video sales is very low, plus they do not take real editorial video anyway.
If the companies merge, that will be an opportunity for someone else to get serious about editorial and video. I think a lot of quality creators will start shifting to other places.
Of course Getty might then buy these alternatives as well...
In the end the merger will happen, but Getty and Shutterstock will basically lose next year and be busy with themselves.
So Adobe can work in peace to improve their offer to customers in 2026.
I also think that Getty and Shutterstock do not have a premium ai collection is a real problem. And Shutterstock is filled with undeclared ai.
The ai tools both offer cannot compete with the quality the other generators offer.
They could try to make deals with the most popular generators, but that would need legal clearance from them. Which is difficult as the legal aspects of ai will take years to clear up.
To not offer ai for 10 years?? How will they do that?
Same for the limits on how to use photoshop. For istock I am still processing images with an old version of photoshop elements that does not have ai.
But for how long can you do that?
Cameras now integrate ai to improve image quality. I cannot turn that off.
Perhaps content shot on film will see a revival for authenticity, but it will always be a niche market.
The merger will give them dominance in editorial, so that would give them a real advantage.
We will see what happens. Threatening to leave the UK is an empty threat.
Regarding Getty, they are the only agency I know doing something to protect creators against the AI onslaught. Besides, they are now a clear number #2 for me.
Anyone know how this will affect UK contributors?
Quote from: Zero Talent on November 30, 2025, 14:46
Regarding Getty, they are the only agency I know doing something to protect creators against the AI onslaught. Besides, they are now a clear number #2 for me.
I agree, I appreciate their "zero AI" attitude, so I upload more photos to iStock than to AS and SS and I can see some growth there, both in terms of no. of sales and earnings.
Quote from: cobalt on November 30, 2025, 04:46
I agree with CMA that Getty will have a near monopoly for editorial content. And they will use the market dominance to lower royalties for creators. Mind you the 15/20% royalty on istock is already rock bottom.
...
We will see what happens. Threatening to leave the UK is an empty threat.
CMA doesn't care about creators and may not even know we exist. That's not relevant. IS and SSTK don't care about creators. Get those thoughts out of your mind. Bottom line is, we are an expense and a nuisance. This merger is about the future, not the past. Microstock is dead.
Empty threat is the way I see it too.
Quote from: Zero Talent on November 30, 2025, 14:46
Regarding Getty, they are the only agency I know doing something to protect creators against the AI onslaught. Besides, they are now a clear number #2 for me.
Yeah, me too, but it's not because IS is growing faster than the rest, it's because the others are dying and on life support. My earnings on IS are growing, but they still aren't what they were in 2012, as an example. So doing better, is true, but better than what? ;)
Getty is not fighting to remove ai from stock agencies, they are just fighting to get some licensing fees for their libraries.
It is a good thing to fight for, but ai will not disappear from the world ever again.
And the resulting fees will probably be just fractions of cents for creators.
In the end there will be a legal framework, but it will take a few years.
So anyone dreaming of ai disappearing as competition...anyway...make your own decisions....
But if 2026 getty/shutterstock are still busy with their merger, they lose another year to Adobe who can grow their business in peace.
And Shutterstock is anyway filled with millions of undeclared ai files, that customer cannot filter out. I am not surprised that customers are leaving.
istock is doing a much better job at keeping their library clean and Adobe has very clear distinction between media types and customers can easily filter out ai or real photos with one click,
But Adobe offers a full package solution, including now several generators to choose from, not just firefly.
We will see what happens. I am sure the merger will come, but it would be good for us if they let pond5 go and we get one more marketplace back.
Contributors who have no problem with AI have no problem with mediocrity. That's normal; mediocrity is inherent to their nature, they're consistent.
But some others understand that Getty is thinking of its customers, who for their part can be equipped with a keen eye and a sensible brain in working order for a good appreciation of the authentic content offered for sale.
I keep the trolls with low sales on ignore...
Quote from: cobalt on December 01, 2025, 08:48
I keep the trolls with low sales on ignore...
You are very misinformed, my dear, and I personally don't need AI to produce anything other than snapshots to make sales.
Without AI, you would be out, but... just wait...
Quote from: DiscreetDuck on December 01, 2025, 11:23
Quote from: cobalt on December 01, 2025, 08:48
I keep the trolls with low sales on ignore...
You are very misinformed, my dear, and I personally don't need AI to produce anything other than snapshots to make sales.
Without AI, you would be out, but... just wait...
That was for you? I never would have guessed. You are right, contributors who have no problem with AI have no problem with mediocrity. The same goes for buyers.
So many people who don't like our customers and their weird attitudes to ai.
But yes, pressing a button creates instant art and makes you rich on the micros....such amazing button talent....
Why don't you all go back to oil painting and make real human art? Or work with stone or ceramics or watercolors?
Using a camera is cheating and destroys the genuine creative process you can only have if your work evolves gradually over many hours, days or years of working on a single image.
That is real art.
Camera button pressing is not creative work.
It took over 100 years to get photos accepted as an art form. Many artists never accepted it.
Box cameras can never compete with real human art, they just duplicate what is available.
Quote from: Diana Herrmann on October 18, 2022, 11:53
Getty bans AI images https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/21/23364696/getty-images-ai-ban-generated-artwork-illustration-copyright (https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/21/23364696/getty-images-ai-ban-generated-artwork-illustration-copyright)
See! You are able to diffuse good news! I really appreciate. :)
Don't hesitate to continue this way.
Quote from: cobalt on December 01, 2025, 12:51
Camera button pressing is not creative work.
Funny, not everyone who stands there just presses the button. Actually, no one who takes their work seriously. You know that yourself.
Not to mention all the food photographers, tabletop stylists, etc.
I would also classify them as arts and crafts, but at least
AI is NONE of that.
Quote from: cruiser on December 02, 2025, 16:40
Quote from: cobalt on December 01, 2025, 12:51
Camera button pressing is not creative work.
Funny, not everyone who stands there just presses the button. Actually, no one who takes their work seriously. You know that yourself.
"You know that yourself" : Hmm, I commend your optimism ;)
Buyers on IS/Getty are greeted with the note below.
Love it!
Hopefully they will clean up SS when they take over ;D
That tells you that they'll never be able to combine SS and Getty collections because there's no way of cleaning out the AI stuff from SS with any degree of confidence.
My prediction is SS becomes the super cheap offering because it's full of dross, iStock the middle price because its guaranteed authentic and Getty high price because of its edited excellence.
Getty is promoting their wonderful ai tool for customers to use on the front page. Just like Shutterstock, Adobe and nearly any other agency.
Stocksy might be the only place not offering an ai tool for clients.
And ai work is just as creative or uncreative as button pushing.
The majority of camera content coming in new to agencies is not creative, but simple duplicates. People sort a keyword search by downloads and duplicate everything from the first 3 pages. That has not changed at all in the last 20 years.
Creators that actually make the effort to understand their personal customer group or even have decided on a group of buyers they want to serve with intention is extremely rare. And they usually make money with any kind of media they use, because being of service is their motivation, not ,,I am such an amazing artist because I press a button" narcissism.
This place used to have some of the best creators genuinely interested in serving customers.
There still is an endless amount of content missing on agencies. And as long as there are gigantic gaping holes everywhere, i really don't understand all the complaints.
Wether fresh files are ai or camera, they are not your competition if what is being uploaded are just more duplicates while you are specifically targeting the huge empty niches.
Will be interesting how they position the SS and Getty collections after the merger. Shutterstock has their own ai collection anyway and also take a huge amount of undeclared ai you cannot filter out.
Perhaps Getty will create a premium ai collection from the official Shutterstock collection and add that.
I don't see how they can ignore an entire media type forever, while offering and promoting a tool to use ai on their agency.
Or perhaps they will create their own premium ai collection inhouse.
Ai will never go away ever again
AI generated images and video are valueless in the eyes of buyers, even if it meets their content requirements.
This type of product may well become ubiquitous, but it will never be valued by agencies in the way photography and filming is, so the price of it will drop to almost nothing. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if agencies didn't start charging prompt writers to host and sell their product because the storage and distribution costs will get so huge. They'll probably say it's an environmental necessity to offset the energy used in their creation.
Quote from: Zero Talent on December 02, 2025, 23:39
Buyers on IS/Getty are greeted with the note below.
Love it!
Except that as contributors are allowed to use generative AI on 10% of their image, in certain circumstances, it's not actually AI-free, it's AI-lite.
BTW, I wish Adobe would offer a cheaper, non-AI version of PS (but still keeping other features updated), to make sure we don't use gen-AI by accident. It looks like they're putting most of their development time/money into AI.
"And ai work is just as creative or uncreative as button pushing. "
Lighting (natural or studio), composition, subject, props, story, location, timing, shutter speed, lens choice, focus, lens filters, story boards, aperture colour grading.
I don't know I've tinkered with AI just to see what all the fuss is about, it felt more like a slot machine than any creative process.
Quote from: Zero Talent on November 30, 2025, 14:46
Regarding Getty, they are the only agency I know doing something to protect creators against the AI onslaught. Besides, they are now a clear number #2 for me.
+1 here, Getty have emerged as my #2 as well.
Also might add that I don't upload image to either of these agencies anymore and get the vast majority of editorial up on Adobe. Personally, wouldn't concern me too much if SS disappeared.
Quote from: ShadySue on December 03, 2025, 18:49
Quote from: Zero Talent on December 02, 2025, 23:39
Buyers on IS/Getty are greeted with the note below.
Love it!
Except that as contributors are allowed to use generative AI on 10% of their image, in certain circumstances, it's not actually AI-free, it's AI-lite.
BTW, I wish Adobe would offer a cheaper, non-AI version of PS (but still keeping other features updated), to make sure we don't use gen-AI by accident. It looks like they're putting most of their development time/money into AI.
There is a bit of difference.
I can replace the sky (with another sky of my own) or clone out an advert manually, as well as I can do it with the AI based tool in PS. In this case, AI is just a bit faster way to do what I would do anyway (and often it even fails to do a better job), and it's not that much different from the pre-AI content aware fill, for example.
But I strongly doubt that those who generate those obviously fake AI images, could ever do them themselves. These are fundamentally copies of other people's work. Being a "prompt engineer" is rather an oxymoron, not a job.
Quote from: angelacat on December 04, 2025, 09:11
"And ai work is just as creative or uncreative as button pushing. "
Lighting (natural or studio), composition, subject, props, story, location, timing, shutter speed, lens choice, focus, lens filters, story boards, aperture colour grading.
I don't know I've tinkered with AI just to see what all the fuss is about, it felt more like a slot machine than any creative process.
Well said.
Quote from: SimonSays on December 04, 2025, 19:53
Quote from: angelacat on December 04, 2025, 09:11
"And ai work is just as creative or uncreative as button pushing. "
Lighting (natural or studio), composition, subject, props, story, location, timing, shutter speed, lens choice, focus, lens filters, story boards, aperture colour grading.
I don't know I've tinkered with AI just to see what all the fuss is about, it felt more like a slot machine than any creative process.
Well said.
And finally, we can always hope that they also push button while playing Russian roulette. (second degree here, of course)...
Quote from: angelacat on December 04, 2025, 09:11
"And ai work is just as creative or uncreative as button pushing. "
Lighting (natural or studio), composition, subject, props, story, location, timing, shutter speed, lens choice, focus, lens filters, story boards, aperture colour grading.
I don't know I've tinkered with AI just to see what all the fuss is about, it felt more like a slot machine than any creative process.
I did mostly ai for two years, I find it extremely difficult to get what I want. I did learn a lot and if a customer searches ai only, I now have content and can be found. With or without ai, I will not be excluded.
But if I do a set up for photography, especially in the studio, it is extremely easy to get good content. You always get exactly what you want. Once I have a system set up you can take hundreds of images, then change layout and lighting a bit, use a different background and props and off you go.
Even easier with people, also because you can combine it with doing video at the same location.
Ai is full of mistakes, results are very inconsistent.
What I found most interesting is to use one of my own photos to create variations and also tried to animate them with ai.
This way you have a quakity image to start with, let us say holiday candles by the window. Then you tell ai now do a version with golden candles instead of red, on white wood table and it snowing outside.
Or something similar but there is colorful blinking christmas tree outdoors for an animation.
Working only with prompts has not been that good for me, but I am probably just bad at prompting.
I still need to do many variations to get one good file, then upscale, then process.
But going forward I see that combination of evolving my own photos as the best way to use ai.
Or transform my own illustrations into watercolor or oil lainting.
Ai is a very interesting tool and I find it just as complex as Photoshop.
I also use ai as a mood board to test various still life combinations. At the moment I am testing various easter card designs. The ones I like best will then be done as photos so the content can go everywhere.
This combination is even more efficient than transforming my own photos.
I haven't tried it yet, but apparently you can give ai various isolated objects and then ask it to create still lifes for you. That would maybe be the ideal way to preview new greeting cards or food images. test lighting, angles, layering, all without actually setting it up physically. then take the winner combinations and shoot that.
All the agencies are heavily promoting ai tools on their front pages. And customers love to use ai.
For creators money from ai training and using these tools will always be tiny.
So by using ai myself I can also better understand what kind of camera photos and videos are useful as base files for the customers.
Getty said many times, they love ai, they just want the generator companies to properly license training files, not scrape them from the internet.
Ai is not going away and if you believe our customers are stupid uncreative idiots for using ai in their work, you really deserve lower income.
Button pushing does not make you creative. 90% of the images on agencies are just duplicates of duplicates of duplicates.
If you were such an amazing talented artist bringing something really new visually you would have steadily rising sales.
Because uploaders who do something really creative and new are extremely rare.
Understand the customer - make money.
Whine and complain that nobody appreciates your brilliance...then enjoy loss of sales.
And then just move on. Blame it on ai that button pushing is no longer working for you.
I think it is sad that msg is becoming the backwards looking complainer site. The up and coming fresh creators are not here.
Hugo is one of the latest creators now doing stock fulltime.
He has been active for many years, he has illustrations, videos photos, uses ai in his metadata workflow.
By focussing on what customers actually need he was able to now do stock fulltime.
Of course you will keep hearing people here whining...but I do not want to do video or use a drone. I am a PHOTOGRAPHER.
Maybe you are, but if you are making zero effort to understand customers, where do you expect the money to come from?
Just doing the same you have been doing for 20 years?
How is that a clever way to run your business?
In the adobe discord is also someone only uploading photos, no ai, no video and makes 300 sales a week with 267 files. Down from 450.
The guy knows something about customers and agency algorithms.
Only those that really want the money will make money.
Understanding customers is the only thing that works.
https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2025/12/02/exclusive-interview-how-drone-footage-transformed-hugo-kurk-into-a-top-earning-microstock-creator/
Quote from: cobalt on December 06, 2025, 10:31
Of course you will keep hearing people here whining...but I do not want to do video or use a drone. I am a PHOTOGRAPHER.
From my experience in other industries, the loudest complainers usually produce the least, while the quiet, hardworking ones end up the most successful. Amazing how the same pattern shows up in this forum.
Quote from: angelacat on December 04, 2025, 09:11
"And ai work is just as creative or uncreative as button pushing. "
Lighting (natural or studio), composition, subject, props, story, location, timing, shutter speed, lens choice, focus, lens filters, story boards, aperture colour grading.
LOL - you're describing the makings of a good prompt!
Quote from: angelacat on December 04, 2025, 09:11
I don't know I've tinkered with AI just to see what all the fuss is about, it felt more like a slot machine than any creative process.
'tinkering' says it all - if you didnt create anything worthwhile it's obviously AI's problem
I still am thrilled that Getty is taking this approach. Do I use AI? Yes it has a place for broll that does not exists for subjects I shoot for different Youtube Channels. Sadly because of the amount of media out there, people hardly notice or appreciate good quality. As producers, our job is to create useful and top quality that is all the customer wants; they don't care if AI did it or your new Canon or iPhone. It is not about the artist it is about the content.
"Ai is not going away and if you believe our customers are stupid uncreative idiots for using ai in their work, you really deserve lower income."
OK so you think people should be punished with less sales for not using AI. Personally I prefer to use only my own work and not risk passing on copyrighted work to the customer but I should be punished for that - interesting take.
Never once have I said customers are stupid uncreative idiots, please stop putting your words into my mouth. I'm very grateful for their business.
"'tinkering' says it all - if you didnt create anything worthwhile it's obviously AI's problem" no as I said I used it to see what all the fuss was about - not to profit from. I don't blame photoshop for my bad photos.
"LOL - you're describing the makings of a good prompt!" the point is people invested time, money and effort, bought lenses, lighting cameras and traveled to locations just for their work to be scraped so other people who haven't invested the time and money to use their work to profit from. If it were not so why are there so many creators suing AI companies for stolen copyrighted work.
This is a critical development. Getty's threat about potential restructuring or reduction of UK operations sounds like a classic regulatory pressure tactic, rather than a purely financial warning.
The real question for investors is this:
Is the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) more concerned with the consumer pricing power of the combined entity, or the competitive landscape for individual photographers/creators?
If the deal is blocked, which competitor (like Adobe Stock or smaller players) benefits the most from the resulting uncertainty and asset splintering?
Blocking the deal might solve one regulatory issue but could potentially destabilize Getty's European footprint, ironically strengthening other non-UK global competitors. Curious to see the CMA's final justification.