Creative Express: Getty Images Finally Launches The Anticipated Subscription Stock Imagery Service

What is a simple blog without great readers? Last night I missed to link to the new subscription stock imagery service of Getty Images. This happened due to an act of nature beyond control (a voice in the background cried: "If you dumb cluck don´t stop blogging on saturday night, then...") and secondly because no official press release had been available on a non-subscription basis ("Oh no, you jerk, not this press release mumbo-jumbo crap again!").

Getty´s new service is called Creative Express (the introduction starts here) and covers all major subject areas: business, lifestyle, sports, travel and nature.

Selected terms and conditions:

Creative Express offers "offers high-volume access to images to over 50,000 images from our vast library of premier collections, featuring Digital Vision and Photodisc, in a flat-rate subscription plan with downloads of up to 50 images a day in one-month or one-year plans featuring web (file size 1-3 MB, 5" x 7" at 72 dpi) or print (10-16 MB, 4" x 6" at 300 dpi) resolutions."

Citing Getty, "Creative Express offers also a multi-user licensing for work groups and teams. Subscribers can license higher resolution files of subscription images at a 10% discount. New images are added on a regular basis. As a subscriber, you’ll be notified when new content has been uploaded. Once you subscribe, you can filter your searches by subscription images only or search all images available on Getty Images. Subscription images are marked with a download link."

Personally, the feature "Best-in-class search functionality" however is a joke. It enables you to "search within results" (we had this years before), but still no real visual search engine (we all know the well-established providers in this area) is available. What Getty instead calls a "Search for similar images" under "advanced image search " is actually "find similar images by selecting any combination of the following keywords Subject, Concept and Style".

Getty explains the difference between the subscription license and royalty-free: "Our subscription model works much like royalty-free. Both license models allow the content to be used multiple times for multiple projects. We limit the use of the imagery to the duration of the subscription. This allows for continued use of any work created during the subscription, but no new work or first-time uses of the content are allowed after a subscription expires. A royalty-free license for single images or VCDs allows for continued use of the content without a time limit."

On a more personal level, a reader wrote: "Going back from your article to the one of Stock Asylum, I had been astonished to read the sentences of Jonathan Klein, "a Getty subscription service would not be like some others that provide what he called 'crap'. He said some services offer large numbers of images but reach those numbers by supplying a lot of similar images from the same shoots [Link]." In my opinion he has the point. Just compare the Creative Express results of a common query like "business man" to those of Photoobjects, Photos.com or Index Open. If my team can access images of DV and PD via a subscription model, what else in the world do we need?"

Generally, it will be interesting to see if and how the other companies in this business field like JupiterImages and Index Stock will respond. Citing the excellent Stock Asylum, "Jupitermedia Chairman and CEO Alan M. Meckler recently told analysts that his company would do everything necessary to defend its dominance over the subscription end of the market."

[Thx to Anon/Nope, esp. to DR and to Jonathan who just called. John said that after the meeting last night at the Barbetta Restaurant Getty Images seriously considers to enter the press release subscription model business; see the last post for the background and the links for more details -- and please don´t take this press release business crap too serious -- like Bill Brooks]

[Update Monday, August 15:
Later Brent Phelps of Abouttheimage.com, a Typepad blog, has delivered the conditions of subscribing to Getty´s new service that I missed to mention:

• (1 -3 mb): 1 month $399; 12-months $1599 (single user)
• (10-16mb): 1 month $499; 12-months $1999 (single user)

Note however -- AFAIK -- that Brent Phelps is a product manger at Index Stock Imagery. This, to my surprise, is not disclosed anywhwere at AbouttheImage.com.

Some other people, working for Index Stock Imagery and writing for separate personal blogs, are disclosing this as a matter of fact:

• Mike Kaltschnee, VP of BD for Index Stock Imagery, Inc., contributing to his famous Hacking Netflix
• Ryan Saghir, CD at Index Stock Imagery, contributing to his www.ryansaghir.com

Together with Pat Hunt, VP of Corporate Relations at Index Stock Imagery, these three people are contributors to the recently launched MacTribe.]

[Update Tuesday, August 16: Brent wrote an email; he has updated the personal info]

[Update Tuesday, August 16: The official press release is available here. Compared to other press releases of Getty Images and given the importance of the treated subject however, it´s somehow short and not a masterpiece of public relations. Some additional information: subscribers have to pay an upfront fee; all imagery included in Creative Express is shipping with model and property releases and full indemnification; possible high-resolution image upgrades, which are available at a 10% discount from the single royalty-free image price.]

[Update Wednesday, August 17: "Getty spokesperson Molly Lohman said the company sees the new service as an entry-level offering and does not believe it will cut into sales of royalty-free and rights-managed imagery", according to the Stock Asylum.]

[Update Thursday, August 18: "Robert Gubas, Getty's vice president for product marketing, says Getty plans to expand Creative Express to include 80,000 images by the end of the year", PDN writes.]