When you wake up on Christmas Eve the first thing on many of our minds is usually thoughts about the holiday, did I get all of the presents? do we have everything we need for the meal? and gosh… I'll get to relax for a few days, right after I check the business email.
When I checked the Acme email account today, I was quite literally stunned… in our Inbox was the following message - "You Have Been Invited To Join Getty Images".
The message went on to read:
"Your website really caught our attention, and we wanted to offer you the chance to join Getty Images as a new Video Contributor.
Getty Images serves business customers in more than 100 countries and is the first place creative and media professionals turn to discover, purchase and manage their digital content.
We're looking for fresh and dynamic HD videos which illustrate one or more of our key themes; lifestyle, business, health, industry, nature and travel. Clips with strong conceptual appeal and an emotional connection have the greatest power to make multiple, global sales."
Why is this important? There are several reasons. As a StockMedia Content Provider, the normal process to join an agency that sells your content is generally a matter of signing up as a contributor, agreeing to the terms and conditions, and start uploading.
As a content provider, most of the stock media houses market your media under a Royalty Free license, which in general terms allows the buyer to use the media in any project(s) (some restrictions apply) with a simple onetime purchase. It also means that the same content is available for anyone else who wants to license under the same terms, for perpetuity.
Getty Images is different. One cannot simply register and join as a contributor - you must be invited. Getty Images while also offering Royalty Free media, is more focused on Rights-Managed Media. Whereas, the media is exclusive to Getty and therefore when a client purchases usage rights, they can be assured that the images or footage they are using for a project / campaign is not likely to appear elsewhere during the period of the license agreement.
As you might expect, they also have exacting standards for quality. We are ecstatic that our media has grown and improved to meet those standards!
We will post an update in the coming weeks with a light-box link, and provide more information about the collections we will be working on to populate the library.
Does this mean we're leaving Pond5? Absolutely Not! It simply means that we are expanding our reach, and making some of our premium content available on a rights-managed platform for the clients who need that option.