The Founding Story of Getty Images, the Giant of Stock Photography

It has millions of photos in its library and whenever you search for any image on the internet, you will definitely see a photo from this library. Getty Images, in 1995 Getty family was founded by

of the company When we look at the founding story There were a lot of interesting things going on in the background. But before we learn these, let’s take a quick look at how Getty Images was set up.

Getty Images, as you might guess, was founded by the Getty family.

Mark Getty in 1995 with Jonathan Klein He decided to found Getty Images. As the internet became more accessible, the duo stock photography He thought it was a logical entrepreneurial idea.

In fact, Jonathan Klein and Mark Getty had no intention of entering the stock photography industry; but this growth potential of the sector They noticed and took steps in this direction. Mark Getty was an investor at the time, and in 1994 he asked his family for support to make his Getty Images idea a reality. His family, especially his father and some other family members, were keen on this new venture. provided financial support.

So the footsteps of Getty Images, Rising from the Getty Mansion we can say.

Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein were aware that they needed a large amount of capital to start such a business. Of course, the Getty family immediately comes to Mark Getty’s aid and with their support, many stock photography companies they buy.

The Getty family, which bought companies over time, is now more than 100 He managed to incorporate the photography company.

The person who attracts the most attention among these companies is Bill Gates, the owner of Corbis Images.

The most important of the companies that Mark and Jonathan acquired, including iStockphoto, is Corbis Images owned by Bill Gates It was a stock photography company called. If anyone knows that Bill Gates is only interested in Microsoft, he can sell this information on media, because when we first learned We were surprised too.

Corbis Images, then owned by Bill Gates, was acquired by the Chinese media company in 2016. Sold to Visual China Group.

Getty Images was passed around from hand to hand in those years.

The company was established as a private equity firm in 2008. Hellman & Friedman It was acquired by and later Carlyle Group was taken over by. However, in 2018, the Getty family bought back Getty Images from the Carlyle Group, contributing to the family again.

This move by the family comes at a time when the company has an archive worth approximately $3 billion, containing more than 350 million images, and generates annual revenue of over one billion dollars.

Now we come to the ‘zero cost’ point of the event.

As we mentioned, the Getty family provided financial support to Mark Getty and his partner and helped him establish the company. It further increased its power by incorporating many stock photography companies and expanded its reach even further.

By licensing even a simple photo of a house or orange juice, he pushed people to buy these photos. This situation, Although the main purpose of stock photography is It didn’t work out that way on Getty Images’ side.

The number of photos taken by Getty Images is zero!

Many stock photography companies, with their own photographers and editors It takes photos and licenses them, making them available to users for purchase. “Children playing ball”, “sunset”, “seaside” and even photos of many famous people They obtain the publishing rights and make them available for purchase.

However, as we mentioned before, Getty Images has acquired many companies and naturally has a hold on the photographs owned by these companies. acquired the right to publish. The point that drew reaction from users was that they took over the publishing rights of many stock photos, even though they were free.

There’s more: Many photographers have seen their photos taken without permission!

Getty Images is not the escape point from the turbulent life of the Getty family. Because despite being a good business, Getty is famous for licensing photos that are actually free. Also, even though they didn’t put their photos there in the first place, There are countless stories of photographers who discovered it for sale on Getty Images. So Getty Images steal these photos at zero cost is winning.

The current value of Getty Images, which generates approximately $1 billion in revenue annually, is $3.51 billion. In this case, the total earnings of Getty Images in 3.5 years are equal to the current value of the company.

Although the policy followed by Getty Images victimized many photographers, Its activities continue smoothly. What do you think about it?

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