Getty Images signs an image licensing deal with Google, signaling a truce after filing an antitrust lawsuit against Google in the EU in April 2016
Almost two years after filing an antitrust lawsuit against Google, Getty Images announced today that it has signed a licensing deal with the Silicon Valley giant.
Context & Ripple Effects
Getty spent years working the regulatory angle before this deal: it was named an interested third person in the EU's antitrust case against Google in 2015, then filed its own EU complaint over Google scraping images and serving downloadable hi-res files in April 2016. The licensing agreement announced today converts that pressure campaign into a commercial relationship instead of a courtroom one.
The deal matters because it sets a template Getty has since reused: in 2025 it signed a multi-year licensing deal with Perplexity to display its images across AI search tools, while narrowing its copyright fight with Stability AI. Litigation is becoming the opening bid, not the endgame.
First-order effects
- Getty Images turns a two-year antitrust dispute into a revenue stream, with Google now paying to license imagery it previously displayed from scraped sources.
- Google gains cleared rights for images in its search results, removing the legal exposure that Getty's EU complaint targeted.
Second-order effects
- Other platforms that surface Getty imagery without licenses — search engines and, later, AI answer engines — face a clear precedent that Getty will litigate first and license second, pushing them toward paid deals.
- Rival stock-photo agencies gain leverage to demand similar terms from large distributors, since Getty's settlement shows complaints can be converted into contracts.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, visual-content economics shift from enforcement-by-lawsuit to platform-by-platform licensing, with image libraries monetizing display across search and AI surfaces — a structure Getty's later Perplexity deal already extends.
- Antitrust and copyright complaints become negotiating instruments for content owners dealing with dominant distribution platforms, raising the cost of unlicensed scraping industry-wide.
The trend: Image libraries are shifting from suing platforms over scraped content to signing licensing deals that turn display into recurring revenue, with Getty running the same playbook from Google to Perplexity.