Microsoft and Getty Images have formed a new partnership that will allow Microsoft to use the catalog of photos from Getty in its products and services such as Bing and Cortana. The multi-year agreement is a nice conclusion to an image copyright issue that caused Getty to file a lawsuit against Microsoft in September 2014.
Getty launched the legal action after Microsoft released its Bing Image Widget, which allowed websites to place a panel on their pages that showed images found by Bing. Getty said that tool could bring up images that are owned by the company, in violation of their copyright. Microsoft removed the Bing Image Widget just a few days later.
Now it seems everything is cool between Microsoft and Getty, if the official press release is any indication:
"In the coming years, the two companies' technology teams will partner to provide real-time access to Getty Images imagery and associated metadata to enhance the Microsoft user experience. "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," Getty Images Senior Vice President of Business Development Craig Peters said. "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."
Specific financial terms of the new partnership were not disclosed.
Source: Getty Images
