I’m So Pulling out my Textbooks
Back in 1890, they passed into law this little ol’ thing called the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
From the wiki: “The purpose of the act was to oppose the combination of entities that could potentially harm competition, such as monopolies or cartels.”
Yes, this is a good thing. Boon to a free economy and such.
Well I’m ready to invoke that act on a little institution known as Getty Images.
If you look around the web and you see an image you like, look closer…odds are Getty already owns it. And don’t both trying to “borrow” it, Getty wants their money and they want it bad.
Oh, and they are large enough to bring a whole passel of lawyers along for the ride.
Getty owns most shots from any professional sporting event. Getty owns the photos of most individual players too.
Getty has hoovered up many of the great images on Flickr, too. In many cases, photographers *gladly* gave over rights to their photos in hopes of making a little money or at least getting a little exposure.
Understandable, but I don’t have to like it.
Ever visited iStockPhoto, a place where you can find a lot of for-pay great stock images? Getty.
And now, oh now, my fave royalty free photo site, stock.xchng is under new management.
You guessed it, Getty has booted the original team (ok, they probably received a nice sum for their time and trouble) and is now in charge.
I’ll betcha some cold hard cash that many of these formerly free images will no longer be free. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that stock.xchng will soon be blended entirely into iStockPhoto and s’long high quality royalty free photos.
This make Hulk maaaad.
I’m just a little personal blog. I don’t make big ad bucks. I make no bucks from my blog. I do it for the satisfaction. And oh so sorry, can’t pay for high quality photos with just my sense of satisfaction.
Bah!
Photo below, found by searching “greedy” on stock.xchng.
Photo by Svilen Milev and used royalty free (for the time being) from stock.xchng.
Comments
Ephraim F. Moya
Karen,
How would you like to see the law changed?
Regards,
EFM
Karen Fayeth
Ephraim – I don’t seek to change the law. I wish to apply the law to this instance.
I’m just, as they say, venting my spleen on this topic.
Anji
But the act just covers the US, I presume. There is more and more you have to pay for online. I often wonder how people afford to illustrate their posts. How about a few drawings?
Ephraim F. Moya
Karen,
Do you make rude noises when you’re venting?
Regards,
EFM
Make your own pictures.
Karen Fayeth
Anji – I believe Getty is a US company, but you are right, only applies to the US. That’s a good point.
Karen Fayeth
Ephraim – Yes, and then I ask Our Lady of Fartima for forgiveness.