Getty Moving Rapidly To Eliminate RM

Getty Images is moving rapidly to eliminate RM images from its Creative collection. As of July 3rd, there were only 2,387,383 RM images representing about 8% of the total collection of 28,624,340 images. However, it gets worse. There are 54 independent distributors listed as having RM image collections on the site. But, if you search those collections individually you find that only 4 of them have any images for a total of 129,241 images. In most cases the searcher is told “zero results.” The vast majority of images still being licensed as RM are in the Getty wholly owned collections.

Robert Kneschke assisted me in this research and has published a separate story on his website, in German.

The following chart shows lists the 81 RM collections divided into 4 categories - Independent Agency collections that Getty represents; Getty owned collections; Former Corbis collection acquired from VCG and User Generated Collections (UGC) where the images are supplied primarily by part-time amateurs.



Included are the number of images in each collection in August 2016, June 2018 and July 3, 2019. The next to last row shows the number of images added in 2018 compared to 2016. The final row shows the number of image added or deleted in 2019 compared to 2018. We will include a similar chart for all RF images further down in the story.

Show RM Chart

Agency Name	Agency	2016	2018	2019	Added	Added
	Type	August	June	July	2016-2018	2018-2019
360cities.net	Indie		4,058	0	4,058	-4,058
age fotostock	Indie	84,306	112,895	0	28,589	-112,895
All Canada Photos	Indie	90,463	107,363	0	16,900	-107,363
America 24-7	Indie	1,856	1,847	0	-9	-1,847
Archive Photos	Indie	24,954	38,713	0	13,759	-38,713
Art Images	Indie	1,159	1,150	0	-9	-1,150
Arcaid Images	Indie	5,774	29,423	0	23,649	-29,423
Asia Images	Indie	15,740	8,032	0	-7,708	-8,032
Aurora	Indie	39,917	40,326	0	409	-40,326
AWL Images	Indie	130,547	142,878	0	12,331	-142,878
Axiom Photo Agency	Indie	18,792	19,383	0	591	-19,383
Biosphoto	Indie	1	39,809	0	39,808	-39,809
Car Culture ® Collection	Indie	4,767	9,860	0	5,093	-9,860
CGIBackgrounds	Indie	5,336	5,336	0	0	-5,336
China Span	Indie	9,809	10,657	0	848	-10,657
Cultura Exclusive	Indie			22,473	0	22,473
Da Vinci Codex Atlanticus	Indie	2,238	2,238	0	0	-2,238
First Light	Indie	46,750	60,655	0	13,905	-60,655
Fototrove	Indie	1,147	1,110	11,253	-37	10,143
Gallo Images	Indie	162,351	183,113	37,997	20,762	-145,116
Genuine Japan	Indie		0	0	0	0
hemis.fr	Indie	70,504	72,350	0	1,846	-72,350
Historic Map Works	Indie	42,078	42,074	0	-4	-42,074
Ikon Images	Indie	11,831	14,461	0	2,630	-14,461
Images Bazaar	Indie	11,206	13,014	0	1,808	-13,014
Johner Images	Indie	21,127	2,459	0	-18,668	-2,459
LOOK	Indie	64,946	67,656	0	2,710	-67,656
Minden Pictures	Indie	210,854	123,160	0	-87,694	-123,160
Mint Images	Indie	4,648	4,420	0	-228	-4,420
Mondadori Portfolio	Indie	11,364	11,375	0	11	-11,375
National Geographic	Indie	223,188	197,341	0	-25,847	-197,341
Nativestock	Indie	1,458	1,458	0	0	-1,458
Nature Picture Library	Indie	11,940	16,038	0	4,098	-16,038
Nordic Photos	Indie	7,042	5,955	0	-1,087	-5,955
Oxford Scientific	Indie	62,075	60,876	57,518	-1,199	-3,358
Panoramic Images	Indie	52,564	55,471	0	2,907	-55,471
Perspectives	Indie	69,192	110,093	0	40,901	-110,093
Picture Press	Indie	39,564	50,021	0	10,457	-50,021
Popperfoto	Indie	1,922	2,298	0	376	-2,298
robertharding	Indie	87,697	101,924	0	14,227	-101,924
SambaPhoto	Indie	7,607	6,932	0	-675	-6,932
Science Source	Indie	99,544	98,698	0	-846	-98,698
Stock4B	Indie	23,131	23,673	0	542	-23,673
StockFood Creative	Indie	35,110	34,448	0	-662	-34,448
The LIFE Picture Library	Indie	905,678	11,965	0	-893,713	-11,965
Topic Images	Indie	29,197	31,365	0	2,168	-31,365
Universal Images Group	Indie	59,226	59,486	0	260	-59,486
Untitled X-Ray	Indie	2,061	2,932	0	871	-2,932
VisitBritian	Indie	67,226	67,226	0	0	-67,226
Visuals Unlimited	Indie	32,756	31,193	0	-1,563	-31,193
WaterFrame	Indie	35,797	39,994	0	4,197	-39,994
WIN-Initiative	Indie	18,709	19,352	0	643	-19,352
Yann Arthus-Bertrand	Indie	4,441	7,848	0	3,407	-7,848
		2,971,590	2,206,402	129,241	-765,188	-2,077,161
AFP Creative	Getty own	3,811	55,887	0	52,076	-55,887
Allsport Concepts	Getty own	2,594	2,584	0	-10	-2,584
Altrendo	Getty own		2,330	0	2,330	-2,330
Discovery Channel	Getty own	4,387	4,387	0	0	-4,387
Glow	Getty own		26,972	0	26,972	-26,972
Hulton Archive	Getty own	44,026	44,456	0	430	-44,456
Iconica	Getty own	42,614	40,064	0	-2,550	-40,064
Lonely Planet Images	Getty own	734,694	804,970	387,730	70,276	-417,240
Photographer's Choice	Getty own	235,567	259,157	249,848	23,590	-9,309
Photolibrary	Getty own	496,271	526,003	398,051	29,732	-127,952
Photonica	Getty own	18,586	18,594	17,689	8	-905
Photonica World	Getty own	11,558	11,579	1,362	21	-10,217
Retrofile	Getty own	8,056	2,363	0	-5,693	-2,363
Riser	Getty own	2,007	1,918	0	-89	-1,918
Stone	Getty own	76,555	80,304	78,696	3,749	-1,608
Taxi	Getty own	57,056	64,107	62,276	7,051	-1,831
Taxi Japan	Getty own	16,344	15,804	15,900	-540	96
The Image Bank	Getty own	463,143	530,822	566,674	67,679	35,852
		2,217,269	2,492,301	1,778,226	275,032	-714,075
Bettmann	Ex-Corbis	903	3,434	0	2,531	-3,434
Canopy	Ex-Corbis	48,254	56,320	0	8,066	-56,320
Corbis	Ex-Corbis			193,900	0	193,900
Corbis Documentary	Ex-Corbis	590,642	600,766	172,150	10,124	-428,616
Corbis Historical	Ex-Corbis	3	7	0	4	-7
Corbis NX	Ex-Corbis			0	0	0
Passage	Ex-Corbis	53,553	46,285	0	-7,268	-46,285
		693,355	706,812	366,050	13,457	-340,762
EyeEm RM	UGC		0		0	0
Moment	UGC			101,124	0	101,124
Moment Select	UGC	13,731	12,946	12,742	-785	-204
		13,731	12,946	113,866	-785	100,920
Total of 4 categories		14,992,119	23,922,471	28,820,056	8,930,352	4,897,585

One of most interesting about the above RM chart is the number of Independent Agencies listed on on the Gettyimages.com that no longer have any images in their collections. Just a year ago there were 54 agencies listed as having collections. Now, only 4 of them still have collections. The others are still listed, but when customers search on the agency’s name they are notified that there are “zero results.”



Part of the reason that Getty has given up on RM and is racing to see how much User Generated Content (UGC) content they can dump on their customers is that they have lowered the prices they charge (and thus royalties) so much, that professional creators can not afford to produce new stock images anymore. Thus, Getty’s only alternative for finding new imagery is to go to UGC.

For comparisons, back in 2006 Getty had 973,933 RM images and 787,281 RF images in its collection. The RM images represented 55% of Getty’s total collection at that time and generated $325.93 million in revenue for Getty that year. The RF images represented 45% of the collection and generated $308.17 million in revenue for Getty in 2006. Thus, Getty’s total Creative revenue in 2006 was $634.10 million.

In 2016 when we did our count RF represented almost 60% of Getty’s collection and RM had dropped to only 40%. We believe total Creative revenue for 2016 was about $280 million.

But then we go to July 2019 and RF makes up almost 92% of the collection while RM represents only a little over 8%. We have no idea what percentage of the revenue these two image types represent, but undoubtedly there are many fewer high dollar sales (over $1,000) than was the case in 2006, or even 2016. We believe total revenue generated by the Creative collection has been flat at around $280 million for the last three years.

The Following chart supplies summary information for the four different groups for both RF and RM imagery.

	Images	Images	Total
	RF	RM	RM & RF
	2016	2016
Indie	2,882,739	2,971,590	5,854,329
Getty Owned	2,782,851	2,217,269	5,000,120
Ex-Corbis	517,124	693,355	1,210,479
UGC	2,771,215	13,731	2,784,946
Total Images	8,953,929	5,895,945	14,849,874
	Images	Images	Total
	RF	RM	RM & RF
	2019	2019
Indie	3,739,382	129,241	3,868,623
Getty Owned	8,014,440	1,778,226	9,792,666
Ex-Corbis	421,173	366,050	787,223
UGC	14,028,989	113,866	14,142,855
Total Images - 2019	26,203,984	2,387,383	28,591,367
Count on Site	23,853,435	2,387,219	26,240,654
Total minus site count	2,350,549	164	2,350,713

Currently, the UGC collections represent almost 50% of the images on Gettyimages.com. If we include the 3,209,931 iStock images found in the E+ category in the Getty owned group the total images created by part time amateurs is about 60% of the collection. The vast majority of the iStock collection as well as the UGC images have been created by part-time “Amateurs." This fact is not meant to be pejorative in any way or indicating "low quality" images, but unlike professionals the amateurs are not trying to earn a living from their sales.

The largest collection by far is that of EyeEm which currently has 6,504,789 images, or 24% of the total collection. Images in the Moment collections (from Flickr suppliers) represent 14% and the E+ (iStock) collection represents 11% for a total of 49% of Getty’s total collection.  

One of the reasons that Getty has been forced to turn to amateur suppliers is that given the low prices they  charge for usage, and consequently low royalties paid, most professionals have discovered that they can no longer justify the expense of producing new images.

Consequently, the independent agencies that had been supplying Getty have been forced to pull their images from the Getty collection in hopes that they might be able to license their images to customers at higher prices. They may make fewer sales, but if the corresponding prices are high enough they hope to generate enough revenue to encourage creators to restart production.

A few of the Independent Agencies have moved to selling at least some of their images as RF instead of RM. But of the 50 collections that have pulled their RM images in 2019 only 5 of them still have some RF images on the site.

RF Chart

The following chart provides a count of the RF images in each of Getty’s images RF collections.

Agency Name	Agency	2016	2018	2019	Added	Added
	Type	August	June	July	2016-2018	2018-2019
a-clip	Indie			58,883	0	58,883
ABSODELS	Indie	9,151	20,423	15,862	11,272	-4,561
amana images	Indie	199,933	225,932	119,628	25,999	-106,304
arabianEye	Indie	47,053	52,796	5,132	5,743	-47,664
ArtBox Images RF	Indie	4,573	4,572	4,591	-1	19
Asia Selects	Indie	10,604	10,508	10,604	-96	96
AsiaPix	Indie	10,282	24,108	24,108	13,826	0
Aurora Open	Indie	18,789	28,805	28,907	10,016	102
Best View Stock	Indie	29,602	30,951	30,941	1,349	-10
beyond fotomedia	Indie	10,583	10,431	9,349	-152	-1,082
Bloomberg Creative Photos	Indie		3,563	5,712	3,563	2,149
BLOOMimage	Indie	41,182	39,507	39,139	-1,675	-368
blue jean images	Indie	41,880	48,145	51,858	6,265	3,713
Caiaimage	Indie	26,332	35,594	40,391	9,262	4,797
Cavan	Indie		93,364	107,115	93,364	13,751
Chic Sketch	Indie		119	169	119	50
CSA Images	Indie	25,037	28,580	28,606	3,543	26
Cultura	Indie	164,301	230,617	219,608	66,316	-11,009
Design Pics	Indie	64,653	73,825	80,902	9,172	7,077
Dex Image	Indie	16,978	16,994	17,131	16	137
DisabilityImages	Indie	10,557	11,100	11,291	543	191
Dorling Kindersley	Indie	96,074	99,793	17,089	3,719	-82,704
Ello	Indie			42	0	42
Evok Images	Indie	385	843	843	458	0
F1online	Indie	21,307	20,880	9,433	-427	-11,447
Folio Images	Indie	7,449	21,074	16,894	13,625	-4,180
Foodcollection	Indie	26,133	63,416	64,379	37,283	963
Fotosearch	Indie	104,032	92,216	88,791	-11,816	-3,425
fStop	Indie	40,112	46,312	47,372	6,200	1,060
Gallo Images ROOTS RF	Indie	18,615	38,094	45,006	19,479	6,912
GeoNova Maps	Indie	1,154	1,154	1,154	0	0
Gulfimages	Indie	5,788	5,788	5,787	0	-1
Hero Images	Indie	41,317	56,828	68,256	15,511	11,428
HEX	Indie	2,796	4,681	4,744	1,885	63
Hoxton	Indie	709	3,983	5,911	3,274	1,928
Illustration Works	Indie	8,112			-8,112	0
Image Source	Indie	107,814	122,653	130,354	14,839	7,701
imageBROKER	Indie	80,439	199,995	196,431	119,556	-3,564
Imagemore	Indie	29,917	27,246	27,378	-2,671	132
imagenavi	Indie	68,909	70,831	71,062	1,922	231
Imagewerks Japan	Indie		9,322	9,348	9,322	26
Imagezoo	Indie	23,827	23,739	21,704	-88	-2,035
ImaZinS	Indie	968	10,708	20,669	9,740	9,961
IndiaPicture	Indie	19,929	28,017	28,600	8,088	583
Ingram Publishing	Indie	9,570	9,514	9,078	-56	-436
Inmagineasia	Indie		9,275	9,352	9,275	77
IZA Stock	Indie	6,348	6,348	6,348	0	0
Johner Images	Indie	42,376	76,517	79,622	34,141	3,105
Juice Images	Indie	22,889	72,995	73,887	50,106	892
LatinContent	Indie	5,743	731	130	-5,012	-601
Loop Images	Indie		2,673	2,709	2,673	36
Maskot	Indie	22,313	32,203	39,173	9,890	6,970
MedicalRF.com	Indie	11,900	11,901	11,918	1	17
MILATAS	Indie	8,099	9,047	9,101	948	54
Mint Images RF	Indie	13,923	27,760	37,172	13,837	9,412
MITO images	Indie	1,192	2,913	3,180	1,721	267
MIXA	Indie	36,943	36,922	36,971	-21	49
National Geographic Image	Indie		58,240	9,794	58,240	-48,446
ONOKY	Indie	22,367	25,569	26,044	3,202	475
PhotoAlto Agency RF	Indie	79,607	85,196	88,545	5,589	3,349
Photononstop	Indie	52,038	66,673	13,802	14,635	-52,871
photosindia	Indie	34,096	34,096	34,106	0	10
PictureIndia	Indie	8,323	121	121	-8,202	0
Pixta	Indie		718	718	718	0
Purestock	Indie	33,029	33,022	33,073	-7	51
Radius Images	Indie	34,223	33,707	64,494	-516	30,787
redchopsticks	Indie	10,351	10,353	43,433	2	33,080
Refinery29	Indie		1,170	33,970	1,170	32,800
Rubberball Production	Indie	35,208	35,324	68,443	116	33,119
Science Photo Library	Indie	93,188	90,453	131,395	-2,735	40,942
Score by Aflo	Indie	34,342	34,340	67,411	-2	33,071
Silkroad images	Indie	1,860	163	33,236	-1,697	33,073
Sino Images	Indie	18,966	47,092	84,443	28,126	37,351
STOCK4B-RF	Indie	12,236	12,642	45,680	406	33,038
Stocktrek Images	Indie	23,875	26,509	62,878	2,634	36,369
SuperStock/Science Faction	Indie	39,525	38,893		-632	-38,893
Tetra/Blend Images	Indie	435,228	295,524	233,106	-139,704	-62,418
TongRo Images	Indie	63,478	49,690	76,193	-13,788	26,503
UpperCut Images	Indie	19,753	28,003	19,878	8,250	-8,125
View Stock	Indie	51,204	57,199	66,225	5,995	9,026
Vstock	Indie		4,487	4,496	4,487	9
Westend61	Indie	149,011	265,648	342,674	116,637	77,026
XiXinXing	Indie	5,984	5,978	5,981	-6	3
ZZVE Illustrations	Indie	6,275	6,251	39,328	-24	33,077
		2,882,739	3,583,367	3,739,282	700,628	155,915
Brand X Pictures	Getty own	37396	36,981	30,503	-415	-6,478
Collection Mix: Subjects	Getty own	65414	92,250	94,390	26,836	2,140
Conde Nast Collection	Getty own		1,344	0	1,344	-1,344
DigitalVision	Getty own	150510	197,231	332,978	46,721	135,747
DigitalVision Vectors	Getty own		1,065,823	1,474,890	1,065,823	409,067
E+	Getty own	892753	2,450,306	3,209,991	1,557,553	759,685
Glowimages	Getty own	53194	49,042	49,306	-4,152	264
Hola Images	Getty own	8634	8,629		-5	-8,629
iStock	Getty own		0	0	0	0
iStock Unreleased	Getty own		309,706	818,957	309,706	509,251
iStock Unreleased +	Getty own		0	0	0	0
Lonely Planet RF	Getty own		0	32,085	0	32,085
OJO Images	Getty own	53702	53,076	52,953	-626	-123
OJO+	Getty own	3867	3,865	3,866	-2	1
Photodisc	Getty own	558184	680,492	809,802	122,308	129,310
Photographer's Choice RF	Getty own	183934	203,838	201,871	19,904	-1,967
Publisher Mix	Getty own		11,113	13,446	11,113	2,333
Retrofile RF	Getty own	7276	12,485	45,584	5,209	33,099
Stockbyte	Getty own	666225	669,292	704,478	3,067	35,186
Stockbyte Unreleased	Getty own		20,355	75,491	20,355	55,136
Vetta	Getty own	101762	59,167	63,849	-42,595	4,682
		2782851	5,924,995	8,014,440	3,142,144	2,089,445
Alloy	Ex-Corbis	10708	52,101	36,570	41,393	-15531
Corbis	Ex-Corbis	468113	569,770	347,708	101,657	-222,062
Corbis Unreleased	Ex-Corbis		6,826	9,200	6,826	2,374
Fuse	Ex-Corbis	30984	4,259	4,251	-26,725	-8
Ivary	Ex-Corbis	7234	7,231	7,227	-3	-4
Luxy	Ex-Corbis	85	9,484	13,550	9,399	4,066
Passage Unreleased	Ex-Corbis		4,548	2,667	4,548	-1,881
		517124	654,219	421,173	137,095	-233,046
500px	UGC			733,857	0	733,857
500Px Plus	UGC			1,574,233	0	1,574,233
500px Prime	UGC			59,056	0	59,056
500Px Unreleased	UGC			261,404	0	261,404
500Px Unreleased Plus	UGC			372,327	0	372,327
EyeEm	UGC	253328	4,542,663	6,487,907	4,289,335	1,945,244
EyeEm Premium	UGC	2824	14,538	16,882	11,714	2,344
foap	UGC		111,772	111,569	111,772	-203
Moment	UGC	453639	1,725,673	2,595,291	1,272,034	869,618
Moment RF & RM	UGC	637599			-637,599	0
Moment Mobile	UGC	29703	45,749	45,625	16,046	-124
Moment Open	UGC	1346112	1,354,911	1,347,988	8,799	-6,923
Moment Unreleased	UGC	410	159,854	301,931	159,444	142,077
Flickr (added to Moment)	UGC	19375			-19,375	0
RooM	UGC	27447	45,081	87,846	17,634	42,765
Snapwi.re	UGC	778	777	33,073	-1	32,296
		2,771,215	8,001,018	14,028,989	5,229,803	6,027,971
Total		8,953,929	18,163,599	26,203,884	9,209,670	8,040,285