Non-Commercial Use of Getty Images

A few days ago a tweet came through my Twitter feed regarding using Getty Images for free. I marked the tweet as a favorite. I wanted to investigate the news when I had some free time. Last night, I finally had time to research the using Getty images for free. When I researched the use of Getty images, I came across an the article from Forbes titled,Free Getty Images No Threat to Photo Market Says Shutter Stock CEO“.

The article from Forbes confirmed users could link to Getty Images. Examples of sites that could link to the images for frees are Pinterest, Flicker, Tumbler, or personal blogs. However, the images cannot be used for commercial purposes. If the website is monetized, the images cannot be linked to for free. Re-blogging imagery from websites like Getty Images is copyright infringement. If Getty Images wished to peruse copyright infringement, they could do so. They have the exclusive rights to their images and the images cannot be used without proper permission/licensing.

Link to Getty Images

Linking to Getty Images allows the use of Getty Images for free on sites that are not monetized. Linked images come with accreditation/advertisements for Getty and their business interests. This new practice by Getty is a smart solution to monetize assets that are otherwise being infringed upon.