Getty Sold, Licensing Model May Change

Getty Images is such a great resource for rich visual information. Within 10-years they have grown to be the best and most respected provider of visual content for publishers, in any media, around the world. I dare say that anyone who consumes media has been touched by the images they produce.

Of course like other large media companies they are facing difficulty maintaining profits high enough to please shareholders and Wall Street analysts. Hopefully this acquisition by Hellman & Friedman LLC will give the company some breathing room. I've placed some links below with details of the deal.

I expect big changes are in store for the content licensing business. I'm guessing companies like Getty will slowly move to more of an ad based / revenue sharing model and away from selling subscriptions and one-offs.

Big content producers do not want to pay for licensed content and why should they when they can pass the costs onto advertisers or get user generated content for almost nothing.

Related Links:
Hellman and Friedman's Press Release
Getty Images' Press Release
New York Times Story
Getty Images' Home Page