The Gorilla on the block, make that the auction block…
The New York Times reports that Getty Images has placed itself up for sale, for the princely sum of one and a half Billion dollars. After gobbling up small agency after small agency, and taking over the control of an industry, and then helping to spiral stock prices downward with the acquisition of istock, it certainly seems surprising that they would now want out of the business.
But with what Getty has given to their photographers, namely low commission rates, bad contracts, and leading the microstock push to de-value imagery based on use, I’d personally like to see someone offer the microstock value for the company. I’ll give them two million and a chicken bone.
I won’t reveal here where I overheard this the other day but these two people were having a conversation about stock images. One said they “bought” two images from iStock for $1. The other person’s response, “Oh that’s not bad (price).” i just shook my head and was thinking what is this world coming to?!?!?