"If you go to the Getty Images website, you'll see millions of images, all watermarked. There are more than a hundred years of photography here, from FDR on the campaign trail to last Sunday's Oscars, all stamped with the same transparent square placard reminding you that you don't own the rights. If you want Getty to take off the watermark, you'll have to pay for it.
Starting now, that's going to change. Getty Images is dropping the watermark for the bulk of its collection, in exchange for an open-embed program that will let users drop in any image they want, as long as the service gets to append a footer at the bottom of the picture with a credit and link to the licensing page. "
"There's been lots of discussion in blogs and on Twitter about Getty's offer to make images available supposedly for 'free'. The only problem is that they're not free, as Karen Blakeman points out in her blog post on the subject. While on the surface of it, it seems to be a lovely kind gesture, I would caution anyone who is thinking of using the service to consider it very carefully."