Getty Images and the next generation

It’s almost impossible to protect copyrighted work these days: it’s too easy for people to copy what you’ve produced, and you don’t have time to go after everyone who violates your copyright. Yes, we live in a world of copycats, content stealers, and copyright violators. It seems to be human nature, and no matter how hard we try, we can’t get over this, and we certainly can’t do it online or in the digital age. Yes, those who have intellectual property are doing their best to pressure Congress to make new laws, but those who would violate such laws always seem to find a way around them.

Interestingly, despite all this content theft, there was a very interesting article in the Wall Street Journal on August 16, 2012 titled; “Carlyle Group Sets Deal to Buy Getty Images” by Sheron Terlep and Ryan Dezember, which made me consider that there will be future cyber laws in the future. Based on this, and realizing the lobbying power of the Carlyle Group, I’d guess they’ve figured out a way to protect themselves from people stealing their content, so I anticipate a future cyber law to be enacted soon.

Was it a good purchase and a wise choice? Well, it quite possibly could be if much of the Internet in the United States ends up in the cloud, and those with rights can demand that the cloud run search algorithms to find stolen intellectual property and impose a fine or fee. for the use of that property, or cut off services for the individual or company that violates the copyright. Which means the company could lose all your data and you could be banned from accessing it until you pay up. That’s one possibility, I’m sure you can think of others.

When it comes to digital images online, they are often encoded as a watermark with a specific code, anyone who copies the image also copies the code, and so they are automatically captured whenever someone searches for that code. This is good for digital photographers, artists, and digital content owners. Remember that Getty Images has an inventory like no other, and in the new scheme of things in the next generation there may be slightly fewer copyright violations, and those who break the rules will have to pay.

This will stop others from violating such rules, which means more people will have to buy the images they use, and that would include everyone from the mainstream media to the lowly blogger. In fact, I hope you will please consider all of this and think about it.