[Foundation-l] 1.6 Billion USD to spare? How about liberation of some pictures

[Ben McIlwain]

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Mathias Schindler wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/business/media/21deal.html?ref=business
> 
> Getty Images, the world's biggest supplier of pictures and video to
> media and advertising companies, has put itself on the auction block
> and could fetch more than $1.5 billion, people briefed on the
> situation said Sunday.

It's no wonder they're trying to sell now, when they think they can
still get $1.5 billion.  They see the writing on the wall; the
simultaneous advancements in pro-sumer level digital cameras and growth
of free content repositories like Flickr* and Wikimedia Commons have
decimated their once lucrative business.  And it's only going to go
downhill for them from here.

*Of course, most of Flickr's content does not qualify as free content,
but even the small percentage that does makes up many millions of
photographs, more than enough to threaten Getty's business model.

- --
Ben "Cyde Weys" McIlwain    ( http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/ )
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