Microsoft and Getty Images make-up after hardy battle and form new partnership
Microsoft and Getty Images might have been fighting it out for the last few months in court, but as the dust has settled it seems the two companies have made-up nicely and even formed a new partnership.
If you didn’t know the dispute started when last September Getty Images filed a lawsuit against the Redmond company for infringing on their image copyrights, stating that Microsoft’s Bing Image Widget, that was released in August 2014, was displaying their images, and other images, on websites without permission from copyright owners. At the time of the lawsuit a spokesperson for Getty Images talked about the erosion of copyright protection, adding that now is the time to “pull the emergency brake” on the plundering of copyrighted images.
Getty came at Microsoft strong, stating that Redmond had, “turned the entirety of the world’s online images into little more than a vast, unlicensed ‘clip art’ collection for the benefit of those website publishers who implement the Bing Image Widget, all without seeking permission from the owners of the copyrights.”
Microsoft’s vastly temperate response, via Geekwire, was “As copyright owners ourselves we think the laws in this area are important. We’ll take a close look at Getty’s concerns.” It wasn’t long after that that Microsoft got rid of the widget and made-up with Getty Images. Getty Images has now dropped the suit, but more than that, the two companies have now formed a new relationship in which Getty’s massive stock of images will be used with Microsoft’s services and products, including the Bing search engine and the digital assistant Cortana.
In a press release Getty Images stated, “With our new partnership, Microsoft will use Getty Images’ latest API innovations and our award-winning visual content to take search experiences to a new level. Our technology teams will work together to create beautiful, engaging applications and services for Microsoft users with licensed content and attribution for photographers and other content creators.”
Photo credit: Andreas Perhab via photopin cc
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