As you might know, I’ve always warned you about using images that are not your own. You also might remember that I suggested using images from Unsplash.com if you couldn’t use your own images as it was a safe place to find safe and legal images to use.
I remember talking about it on one of our Social Media Edge podcasts way back when it was on Tumblr.
Today I woke to find out that my beloved Unsplash has been sold to Getty Images. If you are not familiar with Getty, they have the polar opposite view on images. Getty wants to “own” all the images and wants to sell you the license to use them, that’s their business model. Contrast that with Unsplash, who literally says, “Beautiful, free images gifted by the world’s most generous community of photographers. Better than any royalty free or stock photos.“
You can read about it here: https://unsplash.com/blog/unsplash-getty/
MY TAKE:
The first thing I did was look at the calendar. Was this just an April Fools gag? It’s a full 2 days before, so no, I think it’s real. While the announcement is a P.R. statement written in the usual Unsplash ‘voice’ designed to alleviate any fears, I’m not sold.
Right at the top they state that, “This is not one of those tech acquisitions where the company is bought to be shut down.” but we’ve all heard that before. Remember what happened to Flickr? It’s still up, but has lost almost all of their developers, updates, and advancement. When was the last time you went to Flickr? For me it was August 1st, 2013. How about Tumblr? Posterous? Seesmic? So, pardon me if I’m not sold on you staying open.
Tech is constantly changing and every business needs to make money to stay in business. Heck, I would have taken the money too. For us, the users, we need to know this and be able to adapt and move on. License wise any images you’ve used in the past, should still be ok to use. I bet we’ll see a lot of photographers pulling their images or stopping to contribute new ones.
So now we’re off to go find the next Unsplash. Better to have an alternative now, right?
So who’s got a good resource? I’ll compile a post on those in the near future.
Photo by Eric Prouzet and Ahmed Adly on Unsplash
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, bought a cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and now,a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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