Hmm, damn the man and all that…but money can be really helpful at times.
I’d take a good, long look at the Getty Images Contributor Agreement – “Getty Images has the exclusive right to sell your images and images substantially similar to those in a commercial context once you’ve accepted their invitation.”
That has a certain menace to it. But, as I said, money can be traded for goods and services. Hmm.

I just got one of those mails too. I’m just wondering if it’s likely to be worth all the hassle getting release forms and such. Oh, and the hassle of selling my soul of course.

Bills are bills and money is money. It’s not like they’re going to stick your images on iStockPhoto.

they asked me too… seems like kind of a hassle to get model releases and everything. blah!

Enrol with them. You always can leave them if you feel so.
Get money from the monopoly with no complex at all and use them to go forward in your career.

Go for it.

sure, getty is big and taking over the world, but unlike most of the other agencies they make consistent sales and send you a check on time every month. its hard to argue with that.

Let’s work backwards. What are you going to do with the money?
- Pay off student loans
- Donate to a local charity
- Buy some crack and smoke it with your homeys

>> Enrol with them. You always can leave them if you feel so.
Careful. You can leave, but once you grant them the exclusive license, you’re stuck with it.
On the other hand, are you selling these images through another outlet? If not, you have nothing to lose. What’s the hesitation? Can you spell out your reluctance? Do they offer too little compensation? Are their terms too restrictive?

Yeah, same boat here. I even talked shit about the whole Getty/Flickr thing in an interview on Photoshelter’s blog, yet here I am, considering the exact same thing.

you’re a good photographer. approach some more boutique agencies. i’m with picturetank and have just joined gallerystock. you’ll get a more personal service and there’ll be someone on the end of the phone. maybe you won’t make as many sales – but you’ll get a fair cut on any sales that you do make, and you’ll probably find your work getting used in a more sympathetic and interesting context.
someone please correct me if i’m wrong, but aren’t royalties from gettys international sales weighted 70/30 in favour of getty? and 60/40 in getty’s favour for eveything else? thats pretty shoddy for the photographer…

Congratulations! I bet it is a great opportunity to make money out of your talent. Money will allow you to photograph more. And it will push your creativity beyond wildest imagination if you up to it!

Take it. I’ve been a stock shooter for over 20 years. Though you’ll never see the salad days of the mid nineties again, it’s still worth while. Protect your subjects, let them know that their image could appear anywhere (Getty will want ironclad releases), but go for it. I’ve been with Getty since they took over Photonica, and I’m still making sales of 20 year old imagery. Congratulations.

I don’t know why I have such an incredible sinking feeling in my stomach about this. I’m sorry I can’t supply anything more useful than that.

Say no. But I won’t judge if you say yes.

Just say no. They are the big bad wolf. Why not commercialise them yourself….using Photoshelter! Of course you should listen to everybody and then follow your instincts. Nobody here is entitled to judge you and I’m sure nobody here will. Of course if you do go with them I might stop reading your blog
Patrick.

Hey, I was joking about stopping reading. xx
Patrick.

I don’t know what their terms are exactly, but you probably want to negotiate. Those images look valuable (at the very least to you personally), so you don’t want to sell them cheap. Try to get a 50/50 split on the sales.
If you do decide to partner up with them, let us know how it went!

I guess you’ll have to come to a conclusion yourself, but I’m interested to hear more about your pondering nonetheless.
That said, it’s not only the lousy split that worries me, but (from what I’ve heard) the fact that Getty genrerally is asking for a) exclusive rights and b) that it is only offering the royalty-free pricing model to Flickr users.
That just feels like selling off too much control over something too dear to your heart.

are you signed with any other stock agencys already? i’d look into other agencys first. getty’s photographer/agency cut is pretty crappy, so id recommend handing getty/flickr the outtakes, and lower res images. im signed with jupiter, and i have been very happy with them for the past few years. so i give them first choice. they also have a minimum file size requirement so anything digital has to be shot with a camera better than the 5d. my point and shoot stuff is what i’d send out to the second tier collections.

If they really are asking for exclusive rights, skip it. Go to other agencies, like Alamy, where you have more control. Getty is perhaps too much the man if they are asking for exclusives. If not, weigh how much you need RM and royalty…loans gotta be paid, I hear that.

Getty’s RF royalty is 20%. If you’re willing to take 20% of possible sales, then go for it. If you want to hold out… other mainstream agency’s pay between 20-40%. Weigh the royalty rate against possible sales, and service. Smaller agencies with larger royalties will make you keyword your own images etc, and wont do as much to promote you as an artist. Try looking for an agency that will offer good sales potential, a good royalty rate, and service to the artist. An agency that you respect is also good. You will need ironclad model releases for most agencies, and any good ones will want image exclusivity. Good luck.

Jesus Christ! Why’d you ask us? You’re probably more confused than you were before. Just go with your gut… you know the answer better than any of us.

F**kin great images though!

Sure the company you were writing for sacked you, but hopefully you were writing what you believed in. Just say NO.

Rachel
Don’t be a sellout! Your images deserve more than a 20% commission and an exclusive right’s grab agreement. There are so may places these images could be sold. You are a powerful voice for photography. Be an example instead of a sucker. After all, you don’t have to be wealthy to lead a rich life.

From what I see on stock photography forums Getty is the place

One company to license images.

Are you kidding? let the big bad getty make you some money! otherwise someone else will be making your money…think of it that way

Pride don’t buy film. Unless the terms are just too crazy (I don’t know what they are), go for it. Sure you have the option of shopping them yourself, etc., but are you doing that now? will you? are you willing to work really hard on your own to sell them? really? and you know, it could take a while or those small agencies could go under–it’s happened before.
What I’m saying is–this is a bird in the hand. I’m assuming they only want a subset of your portfolio, so give them the images you’d be willing to give them. Take whatever money they give you and put it back into your work.
The rest of your images, including the ones you haven’t even shot yet, sell however you want.
Think of it as diversifying your portfolio. These days, that’s really what it’s going to take. No one’s going to be able to keep shooting seriously off of a single revenue stream. Those days are over.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!! and run to the bank w/ the $!
Theo will be happy to sign a photo release!!!

I have not had a good experience with Getty, and will be leaving them entirely when the 1-year exclusive (on the images they sold) runs out. I’m get paid 40% of what Getty gets for my images, and I can’t imagine that you would let them take your images and keep 80% and only give you 20%! They do not work hard to get top dollar, far from it. They let the images go for a pittance, then they keep most of the take. You will end up with peanuts. I suggest you run, run far away from Getty. There are plenty of other agencies – even if they pay the same 40% as Getty pays you should be able to find an agency that treats their photographers better and works harder to get top dollar for the images.

art director here, working for ad agencies, I think I know a thing or two about selling my soul.
only you can really tell whether joining getty is right for you. you know what you think of them (and that’s unlikely to change) and you know yourself. make an educated guess based on that as to whether you will be able to come to terms with working with them or not. both decisions are fine but it needs to be based on just that one aspect.
reasons and excuses are deflections from the issue. you have to be happy with how you act. getting a check will not make whatever feeling you have in your tummy go away, it’ll just numb it for a bit and then wear off. not being able to walk away fully, as someone outlined further above, makes this decision one you have to take now.
a question for the round of commenters: what other stock photo sites have a wide range of images and are worth checking out now that photoshelter is no more and getty and corbis, which I use all the time, are poo-poo? I tend to find one or another photographer I’d like to work with or buy an image from via flickr, blogs like this one or cards but I lack another stock photo site to get images for my comps and presentations from. (I tend to shoot the actual ads and not use stock there.) yes, I know about istockphoto but that place ain’t all that.
(no, that’s not my email address above. but if you want it, I’ll share it privately.)

Chris,
Try the Photoshelter Archive.
There’s also Alamy
Ian

“Be an example instead of a sucker” is the equivalent of ideologically influenced starvation. Not a very practical piece of advice, but it does illuminate the point of putting your money where your mouth is. So, Rachel, are you primarily an activist who plans to advocate quality of art and photographers’ rights for the remainder of her career–or primarily a commercial photographer who needs to sell images make a living?
Of course, nothing is this linear, and it’s a tough personal decision. From a purely financial perspective, however, it’s a no-brainer: You would not be a sucker if you signed up; you’d be financially better off than photographers represented by most other stock houses. (I say this with the benefit of knowing what many Getty-represented photographers make, and one of them made a similar comment above.) Those who think doing business with a small agency is better are speaking from the heart, not the spreadsheet. Small agencies may do better from a per-image perspective, and they may be nicer to deal with than the big bad wolf, but their total dollars come nowhere near the returns of Getty, Corbis–and perhaps Masterfile and others we think of as smaller but who generate upwards of $20 million per year in sales. And practically all of those agencies pay the same commission percentages as Getty. In the stock-licensing industry, distribution is more valuable than images.
PhotoShelter is an excellent case in point: It gave photographers a “fair” 70% commission, but little sales. 70% of nothing is still nothing, whether or not it’s a photographer-friendly nothing.
Many professional stock shooters who have been making a full-time living from stock have not been able to get Getty to represent them. That suggests that you have a unique opportunity: There are very few agencies that can put your work in front of this many professional designers and art directors.
Please don’t misunderstand this comment as advocating that you jump on the offer. I only wanted to put it in context. If you are OK selling your work as stock and can get over the ideological objections to the business model in general and what you think is wrong with Getty in particular, it still does not guarantee that the images will sell. So if money is the primary concern, your best chance of sales is with Getty.

So, that fun time when Rachel and her friends were swimming last summer?
That has to be reformatted into a business encounter wrapped up in model releases, contracts and legalese.
Sure the friends will sign because they are friends.
If I were Rachel I’d sign because Rachel has an opportunity.
But it’s sad isn’t it?
Now the market, tired of cheesy Lifestyle yearns for authenticity. The trouble being that authentic means real people.
Ian Murray

Well, stop the suspense! What did you decide?

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