A revolution for the world’s largest and best-known photo agency: Getty Images photos can now be used for free. Here’s how to do it and the rules to follow.
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When you need photos to attach to journalistic articles or any type of service that includes an image, the first name in photographic agencies worldwide that comes to mind is certainly Getty Images.
An empire built on photos of historical events, contingent situations, or more generic images specifically recreated for advertising and commercial purposes, for example: Getty Images is a veritable goldmine of pixels that is often drawn upon.
Today the agency has decided to make a significant revolution in the use of its photos on websites: it has indeed introduced the principle of freeuse, respecting certain essential conditions.
The decision to make Getty Images photos available for free has caused much surprise; an agency spokesperson explained to a The Verge editor that the decision was made in this way to combat the ever-growing and increasingly uncontrollable phenomenon of online image theft.
The majority of the archive can from today be consulted and used for free, enriching your site with photos without having to pay anymore.
The important thing will be to insert the embed code and in this way the photo will appear without watermarks.
The photographer’s name and the Getty Images logo will also be displayed, so as never to lose the indication of the source and origin of the image.
All this in a simple, fast, and intuitive way.
There are some exceptions: not all photos can be downloaded. Two categories are explicitly excluded from free use: “Contour” and “Reportage”.
Another limitation concerns the type of publication and/or creation for which you are choosing the photo: it is not possible to use free images from the Getty Images archive for initiatives explicitly aimed at advertising something.
This means that the chosen license still allows free use of photos for certain commercial purposes (for example, on pages that host banners), but anyone who wishes to advertise a product will have to continue paying.
Another thing to keep in mind is that embedded images will be provided in low quality, while for high quality you will need to proceed with payment as always.
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