Due to the recent uproar from several photography groups, Getty Images has announced a small concession regarding its recent posting of a $49 price for stock images on their web site. Getty's executive vice president for imagery issued a statement explaining the company's decision to reduce the duration of rights-ready and rights-managed web-resolution licenses from a year down to three months.

Originally, the company introduced a pricing plan that was a breakthrough in the industry, pricing almost any online photograph from Getty at $49. The pricing plan included creative, news, sports, entertainment or archival images for online usage of a 500-kilobyte file at 72 dpi. The Image Source and Arnold Newman collections were...

Getty Images has established a rights-ready licensing program with a simplified pricing structure.

Under the new program, duration and territory rights are unlimited, and use parameters are broadly defined. Eight fixed fees have been set, according to basic commercial, internal-company and editorial-use categories, at levels comparable to corresponding rights-managed, single-use categories. Although image exclusivity is not granted, a total image buyout...

Getty Images and Corbis have become charter sustaining members of the Picture Licensing Universal System Coalition, while Jupiterimages has committed to a second year of sustaining membership.

The participation of the three stock agencies is a measure of the industrywide commitment to create international licensing standards,including a universal licensing language that is easy to understand and use...

In April, Getty Images acquired Pixel Images Holdings Limited, the Irish parent company of Stockbyte and Stockdisc, for $135 million. Most of the content licensed under the Stockbyte and Stockdisc brands through a worldwide network of distributors is already available on www.gettyimages.com, with the remainder to be added by midyear.

Despite an aggressive acquisition strategy over the past 18 months, its holdings now include Photonica, Digital Vision, Medio Images and iStockphoto, the company recently lost standing...

Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein, who co-founded Getty Images in 1995, were honored by the International Center for Photography with its inaugural Trustees Award. Getty and Rosen were recognized for their efforts to modernize the stock photography industry, their grants for editorial photography and their philanthropic activities.

Getty Images has appointed Cole Porter to the newly created position of senior editorial advisor. In his new role, Porter, formerly director of photography for the Seattle Times, will be an advocate for adherence to photojournalistic editorial standards.

Getty Images recently established two new services for its customers:a subscription-based licensing service, called Creative Express, and a Chinese-language web site with content developed for the Chinese market. Subscribers to Creative Express pay a fee for access to more than 50,000 images selected from the Photodisc and Digital Vision collections, available at gettyimages.com.

All imagery included in Creative Express is provided with modeland property releases, plus full indemnification. The service offers monthly and annual subscription options, multi-user discounts and high-resolution image upgrades, which are available...

Science Faction recently announced that its image collection is available for licensing through Getty Images. Founded in 2004 by Roger Ressmeyer, a photographer of space and science and a former executive in the stock photo industry, Science Faction represents imagery that captures the universe of physical and natural sciences, high technology, medicine and space.

The collection includes work by science photographers and artists such as Tony Hallas, Fred and Randi Hirschmann, Nancy Kedersha, Chad Kleitsch, Yoav Levy, Flip Nicklin, Louie Psihoyos, William Radcliffe, David Scharf and Henry Schleichkorn.

For more information, contact Caren Brinkema at 206-232-2300, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

In collaboration with Getty Images and photographer Nicholas Prior, FareStart has designed a project to depict the realities of homelessness in the Seattle area. The project, "Home," was unveiled April 14 at the Henry Art Gallery with a talk by Prior about the ethics of photographing subjects in despair, as well as the privileges and responsibilities of having a home.

After its debut at the Henry, the exhibit will travel to galleries, companies and organizations in the Seattle area through March 2006. Putting "Home" on display in multiple venues around Seattle is intended to raise awareness of the challenges faced by the city's homeless population and to publicize FareStart, a job-training and placement program for homeless men, women and youth in the Seattle area.

FareStart is in the final year of its $8 million Futures Rising capital campaign, having purchased a new facility at 7th and Westlake avenues in July 2004. The new facility will allow FareStart to double the number of homeless individuals...

Getty Images has acquired London-based Digital Vision, a royalty-free photography business, for $165 million in cash. The majority of Digital Vision's current image collection already is available at gettyimages.com through Getty Images' Image Partner program. The company expects to increase investment in Digital Vision content to broaden the collection in terms of number of images, depth and geography.

Getty also announced a one-year partnership with PicScout, a provider of infringement detection software. The agreement allows Getty to use PicScout's Image Tracker Service on all of its 450,000 rights-managed images, including those that already have been licensed. PicScout will send reports of online infringements...