Lulu.com and Getty Images announced a partnership that will enable Lulu users to access Getty's image database. Lulu, Inc. and Getty Images Inc. announced April 19 that they have signed a multi-year partnership that will enable Lulu.com users to access Getty's image database.
Lulu.com is an independent publishing marketplace that is designed to allow self-publishers to publish, sell and buy digital products in the form of books, music, comics, photographs and movies. The site allows users to set the revenue price for each piece of content while Lulu mails out a check to the user for the revenue that the content produces.
"Lulu's mission has been to empower creators and by working with Getty Images, we will jointly enable new categories of content to be successfully created and sold," Rob Katz, vice president of Business Development at Lulu, based in Morrisville, N.C., told eWEEK.
Getty Images produces and sends out images featuring content such as news, sports, entertainment and archival imagery. The company also provides users with ways to search, download, license and manage images and film clips.
"Getty Images provides creative professionals in all segments and markets a broad range of visual content available for use across all platforms," Duncan Beard, sales director of Channel Sales for the Seattle-based Getty images, said in a separate company statement.
With the Getty image database, Lulu.com users are able to use the database's content in their self-published books and other projects such as photo books and calendars. The partnership also calls for Getty's high-resolution images to not be restricted to a Lulu book until right before production, which enables digital-rights management restrictions to be protected.
"As a content partner with Lulu.com, we are excited to broaden the visibility of our world—class imagery to an entirely new group of creative professionals while ensuring protection from unauthorized use," Beard said.
"Through this partnership, we will allow users to incorporate high-end, licensed imagery and then create, publish, buy and sell content through Lulu's digital global marketplace," Katz said.
The Getty image database will be available to Lulu.com members beginning this summer as users will not pay anything for incorporating the images into their works. Instead the per-image, per-use license fee will be built into the purchase price.
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