Pot Meet Kettle Moment for Getty

Hat Tip: re/code

For those of you that missed it, Microsoft recently announced a photo widget for its Bing search engine that allows web sites to embed image search results on their web sites.

Getty has decided to sue Microsoft for copyright violation.


That leaves me dumbfounded.

This is the company that recently decided to allow embedding of images from its library.  Images that don't belong to Getty, but instead belong to those that contributed them to Getty's library.

Getty allows embedding images free of charge, Getty gets to collect information it can make money off of as a result of that embedding, and the actual copyright holder gets the shaft.  (They have updated their agreement so that the contributor get part of advertising revenue, but the program started with Getty giving the images away without compensating the owner.  Plus there is no sharing of revenue created using the information collected.  Getty keeps all that.)


And now they're suing Microsoft for allowing web sites to embed search results?

I'd say "Pot Meet Kettle", but that implies equivalence between the actions of the two companies.  I don't think they are equivalent.

I think Getty's behavior is far worse than Microsoft's.

Microsoft is just allowing web sites to put publicly available information on their web sites.  They have no control over whether or not the image being displayed is owned by the person that posted it.

Getty, itself, is the one doing the posting.  They are arguably guilty of violating the rights of the owners of the images that they allow to be embedded.  (And for those that want to point to Getty's contract for contributors, look up "adhesion contract".)


Pot vs. kettle?

It's more like pot meet stainless steel skillet.


I suspect Getty's embedded image project may be the reason Getty has decided to sue.  The ability to embed Bing image search results means there is no reason to use Getty's embed program.

It's not about protecting copyright.  Getty has proven itself to not care about that.  (Far too often lately.)

It's about protecting Getty's bottom line.