I just got a notice that the stockholders are required to make a decision on the offer, before October 22nd, 2025 at 7AM
What is being offered:
·In exchange for each of your securities:
1) ¨$9.50 cash and ¨9.17 shares of Getty Images Holding, Inc. common stock (symbol GETY)
or
2) ·Cash Election¨$28.8487 cash, subject to proration
or
3) ·Stock Election¨13.67237 shares of Getty Images Holding, Inc. common stock (symbol GETY), subject to proration
I'll guess that we'll be hearing about the exciting changes, soon after that.
My first guess is, Bigstock will be closed. After that, depending on how they merge things, or keep SSTK independent, the rules for what's acceptable and what's not, will probably be brought into the same terms that Getty/iStock uses. I sure hope they don't disable all the news editorial, like Getty did, when they took over iStock and moved it to the Getty servers.
It is quite inconsiderate of them not to give contributors any insight about what the future holds. If they are going to merge the SSTK and GETY portfolios, we are just wasting our time uploading to both.
Quote from: Danybot on October 03, 2025, 04:39
It is quite inconsiderate of them not to give contributors any insight about what the future holds. If they are going to merge the SSTK and GETY portfolios, we are just wasting our time uploading to both.
Yes, but as we are traditionally kept in the dark about anything, this is the usual. I stopped uploading my news editorial to SSTK when this merger was announced. That doesn't apply to everyone, but when IS disabled 3,657 uploads, I was very unhappy. I don't want to work on new files and have them disabled. That's Getty who has paid people out shooting the same, so we are not needed and we are competition for in house images.
I doubt very much that SSTK will be merged and closed. It's too big of a brand and identity. On the other hand, Pond5 or Bigstock, could disappear within the year? All they need for that is, merge the content that isn't already duplicated, and consider that? Most of everything on SSTK is also on BS. Pomd5 maybe less, but a large portion, is the same people, who uploaded to all of them.
Then Getty just points the P5 and BS websites to iStock and Getty and they have no staff, much less expense, the same contents and they are building more customers.
I'm wondering more about, what happens to the reset and the dimes? I sure hope someone at Getty wakes up and ends that crap show.
I wonder if perhaps that's why it seems Pond5 sales are rather dumpy too?
I rarely upload videos to SS after its merger with P5. I don't upload to P5 often, but video sales are slightly better in the recent months.
pond accepts about same as SS, but on SS a % are sent to the data catalog, so the Pond portfolio is a bit different - but w minimal sales it may be useful to just discard pond 5 (altho they also dont distinguish editorial from commercial)
I earn significantly more on Shutterstock. It's five times more than on iStock. My earnings are much lower on iStock, and there are weekly posting limits. I suspect that if Shutterstock were to shut down, I, and many others, would be similarly affected. I hope the merger will allow them to continue operating as separate sites.
They will not give up all these customer contracts on SS.
I think they will run the different brands for a few years separately. Both have bought other agencies but kept the brands they bought without integrating the, i.e. pond5 was never merged into SS etc...
I do wonder if they will come up with a central upload system.
Like uploading to istock you can choose to have all files distributed automatically to the agencies they won.
That would be useful for them to prevent duplicates and useful for me as a contributor to save time.
Quote from: sinandogan on October 07, 2025, 12:24
I earn significantly more on Shutterstock. It's five times more than on iStock. My earnings are much lower on iStock, and there are weekly posting limits. I suspect that if Shutterstock were to shut down, I, and many others, would be similarly affected. I hope the merger will allow them to continue operating as separate sites.
I doubt that they will shut down SSTK, but there's no reason to keep Bigstock. Pond5 is a brand and handles video, they might keep that.
Quote from: cobalt on October 07, 2025, 12:44
They will not give up all these customer contracts on SS.
I think they will run the different brands for a few years separately. Both have bought other agencies but kept the brands they bought without integrating the, i.e. pond5 was never merged into SS etc...
I do wonder if they will come up with a central upload system.
Like uploading to istock you can choose to have all files distributed automatically to the agencies they won.
That would be useful for them to prevent duplicates and useful for me as a contributor to save time.
iStock/Getty bought up dozens of agencies, they merged them into Thinkstock, remember. Then they moved that to Getty or iStock and merged the IS database, into Getty... and shut down Thinkstock. Anything is possible, but I don't think that closing SSTK is in the near future.
There will be a problem with duplicates if they merge things and that's a complex problem, because of the data and annotations. A good reason to leave SSTK as is.
My concern is the way they disable content that competes with Getty. They could come through and remove (they are so nice and call it disabling) thousands of my images, again. The same could happen to anyone else who does Editorial. In which case, about half of the horrid, despicable, SSTK income, would be gone.
You are right, they did disable and merge a few agencies that they bought.
But SS kept their last buys open, i.e. envato, pond5.
I have asked chatgpt to draw on publicly available non exclusive sales data and asked it how many files will I need to ever get 800 dollars a month on istock as a non exclusive. (currently 20-40 dollars after not uploading for over 10 years)
Basically the ai laughed at me and said something like...that starts with 50k uploads...
Has it really become this bad?
Is istock now such a low player?
The ai is suggesting to spend more attention to the envato elements market because in proportion sales are better there.
I do hope the merger benefits istock in some way, I am not happy that the market seems to be closing into adobe only if you are indie.
There should be more possibilities.
Quote from: cobalt on October 15, 2025, 21:31
You are right, they did disable and merge a few agencies that they bought.
But SS kept their last buys open, i.e. envato, pond5.
I have asked chatgpt to draw on publicly available non exclusive sales data and asked it how many files will I need to ever get 800 dollars a month on istock as a non exclusive. (currently 20-40 dollars after not uploading for over 10 years)
Basically the ai laughed at me and said something like...that starts with 50k uploads...
Has it really become this bad?
Is istock now such a low player?
The ai is suggesting to spend more attention to the envato elements market because in proportion sales are better there.
I do hope the merger benefits istock in some way, I am not happy that the market seems to be closing into adobe only if you are indie.
There should be more possibilities.
Yes, asking AI for the answer is interesting. :)
All of us are different. Some people are exclusive on IS and have done well. I make much more on AS, and SSTK has become so bad, it's not worth uploading. Yet others make more on SSTK and don't get much from Adobe.
All I can say for sure is, Getty pays us 15%. Getty bought up all those agencies and then eventually shut them down, by merging the images into the iStock and Getty images... The Getty / SSTK merger, Getty will be in control. We don't know what they will do. I don't expect they will change SSTK or P5, anything else, I predict BS will be shut down.
It appears the SS/Getty merger has encountered concern from UK regulators regarding competition.
Might delay merger some or ??
https://www.neowin.net/news/getty-and-shutterstock-hit-a-roadblock-as-uk-cma-scrutinizes-merger/ (https://www.neowin.net/news/getty-and-shutterstock-hit-a-roadblock-as-uk-cma-scrutinizes-merger/)
An excerpt from that article:
" For those who are not familiar with Getty Images and Shutterstock, they own lots of stock media that you see all over the internet".
I didn't they GI and SS owned the stock media on their sites ::)
Quote from: cobalt on October 15, 2025, 21:31...
I have asked chatgpt to draw on publicly available non exclusive sales data and asked it how many files will I need to ever get 800 dollars a month on istock as a non exclusive. (currently 20-40 dollars after not uploading for over 10 years)...
chatgpt cant predict anything - it has no actual 'knowledge' - it just builds on, word by word, what it finds in its training dataset as the next word.
this can give the appearance of intelligence but it's a mirage
so ii can usually provide a reasonable historic background but cannot do mathematical predictions of the future
I asked Chat GPT the same to see how it's answer would differ from my actual number of files and earnings. It was only off by a factor of 11.
Quote from: danielvisuals on October 27, 2025, 21:48
An excerpt from that article:
" For those who are not familiar with Getty Images and Shutterstock, they own lots of stock media that you see all over the internet".
I didn't they GI and SS owned the stock media on their sites ::)
GI and SS do own lots of the media that you see on their websites. Getty Images has acquired other older photo agencies and archives, it has digitized their collections, enabling online distribution.
Quote from: alan b traehern on October 28, 2025, 09:25
Quote from: danielvisuals on October 27, 2025, 21:48
An excerpt from that article:
" For those who are not familiar with Getty Images and Shutterstock, they own lots of stock media that you see all over the internet".
I didn't they GI and SS owned the stock media on their sites ::)
GI and SS do own lots of the media that you see on their websites. Getty Images has acquired other older photo agencies and archives, it has digitized their collections, enabling online distribution.
Just because they acquired other older photo agencies and archives does not mean they OWN the images. Contributors are the owner of their content.
Quote from: Her Ugliness on October 28, 2025, 09:39
Quote from: alan b traehern on October 28, 2025, 09:25
Quote from: danielvisuals on October 27, 2025, 21:48
An excerpt from that article:
" For those who are not familiar with Getty Images and Shutterstock, they own lots of stock media that you see all over the internet".
I didn't they GI and SS owned the stock media on their sites ::)
GI and SS do own lots of the media that you see on their websites. Getty Images has acquired other older photo agencies and archives, it has digitized their collections, enabling online distribution.
Just because they acquired other older photo agencies and archives does not mean they OWN the images. Contributors are the owner of their content.
No, not really. When they bought some of the agencies, that was already agency owned content. When they bought image collections and digitized them, Getty owns all the image rights. Most if not all Editorial and News is contract, not stock from people like us. Yes, contributors do own their own, our own images, but the Getty way of doing things, they are pushing their own, owned content.
Just part of that: "Since its formation, Getty Images has pursued an aggressive programme of acquisition, buying up many privately owned agencies that had built up the stock photography industry, from small family-run firms to larger agencies. By 1999, it had acquired one of the largest agencies, Tony Stone Images; the online art seller Art.com; the sports photography agency Allsport; the market leader in the Benelux and Scandinavia: Word View (1996, from Bert Blokhuis, four offices, for undisclosed sum); journalistic specialists Liaison Agency; Newsmakers, the first digital news photo agency; Online USA, a specialist in celebrity shots; and the Hulton Press Library, the former archive of the British photojournalistic magazine Picture Post. The Hulton collection was sold by the BBC to Brian Deutsch in 1988, when it was renamed Hulton Deutsch. In 1996, the Hulton collection was sold on once more, this time purchased by Getty Images and renamed Hulton Getty. With the acquisition of the Hulton library, Getty Images took ownership of the rights to some 15 million photographs from British press archives dating back to the nineteenth century. Hulton Getty also included photographs from the Keystone Collection, as well as images by notable photographers such as Bert Hardy, Bill Brandt, Weegee and Ernst Haas"
Getty Images acquired the Michael Ochs Archives in February 2007. The Michael Ochs Archives were described by The New York Times as "the premier source of musician photography in the world".
Getty owns many of their own images, maybe more important and historic images, than the Microstock side has provided.
Quote from: PCDMedia on October 27, 2025, 16:08
It appears the SS/Getty merger has encountered concern from UK regulators regarding competition.
Might delay merger some or ??
https://www.neowin.net/news/getty-and-shutterstock-hit-a-roadblock-as-uk-cma-scrutinizes-merger/ (https://www.neowin.net/news/getty-and-shutterstock-hit-a-roadblock-as-uk-cma-scrutinizes-merger/)
The CMA were not satisfied with the responses they received and have announced a full phase 2 investigation
https://photoarchivenews.com/news/confirmed-cma-launches-in-depth-investigation-on-getty-images-shutterstock-proposed-merger/ (https://photoarchivenews.com/news/confirmed-cma-launches-in-depth-investigation-on-getty-images-shutterstock-proposed-merger/)
Quote from: Newsfocus1 on November 04, 2025, 12:01
Quote from: PCDMedia on October 27, 2025, 16:08
It appears the SS/Getty merger has encountered concern from UK regulators regarding competition.
Might delay merger some or ??
https://www.neowin.net/news/getty-and-shutterstock-hit-a-roadblock-as-uk-cma-scrutinizes-merger/ (https://www.neowin.net/news/getty-and-shutterstock-hit-a-roadblock-as-uk-cma-scrutinizes-merger/)
The CMA were not satisfied with the responses they received and have announced a full phase 2 investigation
https://photoarchivenews.com/news/confirmed-cma-launches-in-depth-investigation-on-getty-images-shutterstock-proposed-merger/ (https://photoarchivenews.com/news/confirmed-cma-launches-in-depth-investigation-on-getty-images-shutterstock-proposed-merger/)
Just what we all need. More politics and CMA types, meddling in business affairs, instead of letting the market determine what our choices are. None of this protects us, in any way. It just creates a false support for a dying business model, which will struggle and suffer longer, until it collapses on itself. What I mean is, whether SSTK and Getty are two giants, or one giant, they will still dominate. The others who are failing, will just take a little longer to go out of business.
None of this benefits us or the consumers. But it does satisfy the obtrusive and annoying government political guiding for their agenda by interfering in business economic matters.
The bottom line question should be, will this help the market or hurt the market, not maybe something could change. Maybe things could be much better with less dead agencies involved, trying to stay alive by offering the lowest prices and paying the lowest commissions. Maybe if SSTK and Getty can stop the race to the bottom and the lowest value, lowest pay, we could see some stability for a change. A change for the better.