On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 6:38 AM, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:

On 26/02/2008, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher@gmail.com> wrote:

> "Through a series of acquisitions, Getty grew to become the world's
> largest distributor of high-quality pictures and video. Still, fears
> about increased competition from lower-cost Internet-based rivals have
> taken their toll on Getty's stock price, prompting the company to seek
> a buyout."
> Dare I suggest H&F didn't get a very good deal.
> But I suppose they were smart to move faster than [[Encyclopćdia
> Britannica, Inc.]].

Just imagine the impact when Commons' search doesn't suck ;-)

Getty supplies high-quality, color-corrected, print-ready images to risk-averse commercial publishers. They are looking for actionable assurances that all of the copyright, model rights, and other restrictions have been cleared on the work they are purchasing.

For as much as Commons wants to portray itself as THE free image repository, people don't place nearly the same degree of faith in its assurances as they do in a commercial service like Getty (nor should they based on the track record so far). Nor is a commercial publisher likely to touch complex vehicles like GFDL, CC-SA, etc.

Commons is a very long way from having the same kind of impact (or even really competing in the same space) as a commercial image distributor like Getty.

-Robert Rohde