Getty Images

In 1995, Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein co-founded the predecessor to Getty Images in London, then called Getty Communications.⁠[1][1]

In September 1997, Getty Communications merged with PhotoDisc, Inc. to form Getty Images, Inc. By 2007, the company served customers in more than 100 countries and offered over 120 creative collections through websites including gettyimages.com, punchstock.com, and istockphoto.com, while editorial images came from its own team and partners such as Agence France-Presse; it had 1,935 employees at the end of 2007.⁠[1][2][2][2][2]

On February 9, 2006, Getty Images acquired iStockphoto, Inc., based in Calgary, Canada, for $50 million, of which $45.7 million was paid at closing and $4.3 million was held in escrow, to be released after certain former shareholder employees completed one to three years of continued service. iStockphoto operated a low-priced microstock model built on work by amateur and semi-professional photographers; after the acquisition it continued operating as a separate brand, with founder Bruce Livingstone remaining at its helm.⁠[3][3][3][2][4][4]

On April 6, 2006, the company acquired Pixel Images Holdings Limited, parent of the Tralee, Ireland, photo agencies Stockbyte and Stockdisc, for $135 million in net cash; the two had mainly sold royalty-free imagery through distributors.⁠[2][2][2]

On April 25, 2007, the company acquired MediaVast, Inc. of New York for $197.3 million in net cash, gaining the entertainment and event photography brand WireImage and its sub-brands FilmMagic and Contour Photos to expand its entertainment and celebrity imagery business. In May of the same year, the company also acquired the stock photography aggregator and distributor Punchstock (Publisher’s Toolbox, Inc.), aimed at value-conscious customers.⁠[2][2][2][2]

On February 24, 2008, Getty Images signed a merger agreement with affiliates of the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, under which stockholders would receive $34 per share in cash, in a transaction valued at approximately $2.4 billion including assumed debt, a premium of about 55% over the closing price on January 18, 2008, before the company announced it was exploring strategic alternatives. Stockholders including Chairman Mark Getty and Getty Investments, collectively holding about 15% of the shares, agreed to vote in favor and to roll their shares into the acquiring entity.⁠[5][5][6][6][6]

On July 2, 2008, the merger was completed, Getty Images became a wholly owned subsidiary of Abe Investment, L.P., an affiliate of Hellman & Friedman, and its common stock was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange after the close of trading that day.⁠[7][7][7]

On August 15, 2012, The Carlyle Group announced that it would acquire a controlling stake in Getty Images from Hellman & Friedman for $3.3 billion, with equity financing from its $13.7 billion U.S. buyout fund Carlyle Partners V; Mark Getty and the Getty family rolled substantially all of their interests into the deal, and CEO Jonathan Klein also invested. The holding company Legacy Getty was incorporated in Delaware on September 25 of that year and indirectly acquired Getty Images, Inc. in October; after the transaction, Carlyle Partners V held a majority of the equity and the Getty family a minority.⁠[8][8][9][8][1][10][10]

In September 2018, the Getty family announced that it would acquire a majority stake in Getty Images from The Carlyle Group, buying all of Carlyle’s equity for cash plus units, with Carlyle retaining a financial interest in the company’s future growth; the deal acquired Carlyle’s stake for $250 million in cash, with about $2.35 billion of debt rolled over. Under the arrangement, Mark Getty would become chairman, Jonathan Klein would become deputy chairman, and then-COO Craig Peters would become CEO; Peters has served as CEO since 2019.⁠[11][12][12][12][1]

On April 1, 2021, the company acquired the free image platform Unsplash for $89.2 million in net cash, plus approximately $20 million in contingent consideration based on revenue targets. As of the end of March 2022, Unsplash had exceeded 4.2 billion cumulative downloads and averaged about 24 million monthly users.⁠[10][10]

On July 22, 2022, Getty Images completed its business combination with CCNB, a special purpose acquisition company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (under an agreement signed on December 9, 2021); the listed entity, Getty Images Holdings, Inc., formerly known as Vector Holding, LLC, listed its Class A common stock and warrants on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbols GETY and GETY WS, respectively. After the combination, the Getty family held 47.9% and Koch Icon Investments 20.7%; Mark Getty served as chairman and Craig Peters as CEO.⁠[13][10][13][13][13]

On January 16, 2023, several Getty Images companies and iStockphoto LP sued Stability AI Limited in the High Court of England and Wales, alleging that it had reproduced images and captions from Getty Images’ websites without authorization to train the image generation model Stable Diffusion, and asserting copyright, database right, and trademark infringement and passing off. During the trial in June 2025, the claimants dropped their primary copyright infringement and database right claims relating to the model’s training and output, focusing instead on trademark infringement, passing off, and secondary copyright infringement.⁠[14][14][14][14][14]

On October 27, 2023, in the warrant case brought by Alta Partners and CRCM against Getty Images Holdings, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled for the plaintiffs on their breach of contract claims, awarding $36.9 million to Alta and $51 million to CRCM, plus pre-judgment interest of 9% per annum, and ruled for the company on all other claims. The company recorded a loss on litigation for the matter in 2023. On January 15, 2026, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment, with one judge dissenting; on April 16, the court denied the company’s petition for rehearing, and the company then drew on its revolving credit facility to pay the judgment.⁠[15][15][15][15][15][15][15][16][16]

On January 6, 2025, Getty Images and Shutterstock signed a merger agreement to combine as a visual content company in a merger of equals, announced on January 7. Based on closing share prices as of January 6, 2025, the combined company would have an enterprise value of approximately $3.7 billion and would keep the Getty Images Holdings, Inc. name and the GETY ticker, with Craig Peters as CEO and Mark Getty as chairman; of the eleven board members, six would be designated by Getty and four by ShutterstockShutterstockShutterstock is a stock and creative content platform headquartered in New York, United States, that licenses images, video, music, and editorial content to businesses and individuals and provides metadata for machine learning and generative artificial intelligence; it has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 2012 (ticker SSTK). In January 2025 it signed a merger agreement with Getty Images; the agreement was terminated on July 7, 2026, and the merger was not completed.Open the full entry. The two companies expected annual cost savings of $150 million to $200 million within three years. Shutterstock stockholders could elect $28.8487 per share in cash, 13.67237 shares of Getty stock, or mixed consideration of 9.17 shares plus $9.50 in cash, with each stockholder’s election subject to proration at closing.⁠[17][18][18][18][18][18][18][18][18][18][18][18][18]

On August 14, 2025, Getty Images (US), Inc. sued three Stability AI companies in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, asserting claims including copyright infringement, falsification of copyright management information, trademark infringement, and unfair competition, and seeking damages and an injunction. A similar suit the company had earlier filed in Delaware was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice by the company before the court ruled, after Stability AI challenged jurisdiction.⁠[14][14][14]

On September 18, 2025, Getty Images and Shutterstock agreed to waive the closing condition in the merger agreement requiring Getty to extend the maturity of its existing term loans and senior notes to no earlier than February 19, 2028. In February 2025, Getty had already refinanced its term loans through a subsidiary, obtaining two five-year term facilities of $580 million and €440 million.⁠[19][19][19]

On November 3, 2025, the UK Competition and Markets Authority referred the merger to an in-depth Phase 2 review; the remedies Getty had previously offered did not prevent the move to Phase 2.⁠[20][21]

On November 4, 2025, the High Court of England and Wales ruled in Getty v. Stability AI, upholding only the claimants’ trademark infringement claims and rejecting the secondary copyright infringement claim, while finding that Getty’s copyright-protected works had been used to train Stable Diffusion. In December, the court granted the claimants an injunction, awarded Stability AI interim costs for the matters on which the claimants lost or which they dropped, granted Getty permission to appeal on secondary infringement, and denied Stability AI’s request to appeal the trademark ruling; Stability AI then sought permission from the Court of Appeal to appeal the trademark ruling.⁠[14][14][14][14][14]

On February 19, 2026, Getty issued a statement on the UK Competition and Markets Authority’s provisional decision on the merger; on February 23, the U.S. Department of Justice concluded its review of the merger, and the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act expired without any conditions.⁠[22][23]

On March 17, 2026, the company received notice from the New York Stock Exchange that the average closing price of its Class A common stock had been below $1 over a consecutive 30-trading-day period, failing to meet continued listing standards; the company had six months to regain compliance, during which the stock would remain listed.⁠[24][24][24][24]

On May 15, 2026, the UK Competition and Markets Authority published its final report, finding that the merger could be expected to substantially lessen competition in the supply of editorial images (news, sports, entertainment, and archival images) in the UK but not in the global market for stock content. The authority found the partial divestiture offered by the parties in Phase 2 ineffective and required that Shutterstock’s entire editorial business, including Rex Features, Splash News, and Backgrid, be sold to a purchaser it approved before the merger could proceed.⁠[25][25][20]

In a case brought by Funicular Funds and other investors alleging breaches of warrant agreements dated August 4, 2020, the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County, on June 9, 2026, granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment as to the warrants for which they had provided authorization letters and conditionally granted it as to the rest; the company appealed that ruling on July 2. On July 27, the court directed the clerk to enter judgment against the company, in an amount the plaintiffs calculated, including interest, at about $92.31 million as of August 25. On August 25, the company and the plaintiffs entered into a standstill agreement; on August 26, the company appealed the July 27 order.⁠[26][26][26][27][27][27][27][27]

On June 21, 2026, Getty Images announced the launch of its partnership with OpenAI; the company had previously referred to signing the deal, without naming the counterparty, on its third-quarter 2025 earnings call.⁠[28]

On June 30, 2026, the Getty Images board unanimously decided not to sell Shutterstock’s editorial business under the supervision of the UK Competition and Markets Authority (the merger agreement did not require Getty to accept that condition) and to terminate the merger agreement after the second extended end date of July 6. On July 7, Getty delivered written notice of termination to Shutterstock, effective immediately, and the merger was not completed; the same day, the authority received Getty’s written assurances that the merger had been abandoned and subsequently cancelled its inquiry. Following the termination of the merger agreement, the 10.5% senior secured notes due 2030 issued by Getty Images, Inc. were to be redeemed under a special mandatory redemption provision.⁠[29][29][29][30][20][20][30][29]

On July 20, 2026, the board appointed Elizabeth Abrams and Thomas Walper as directors, and Hilary Schneider resigned as a director; the company engaged Guggenheim Securities as financial advisor to evaluate strategic financing alternatives and balance sheet management initiatives. On August 27, director Chinh Chu resigned.⁠[31][31][31][27]

In the second quarter of 2026, the company’s revenue was $229.1 million, down 2.5% year over year, with revenue from the iStock e-commerce platform down $7.4 million. As of June 30, the company had cash of about $51.6 million, and in July it drew the remaining $30 million under its revolving credit facility. The warrant litigation ($110.9 million in judgment and interest paid in the second quarter, with a remaining litigation reserve of about $99.5 million), about $60.4 million in direct costs of the terminated merger, and interest expense on the merger financing weighed on liquidity, and in its quarterly report filed on August 10, management concluded that there was substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern within one year.⁠[32][32][32][32][32][32][32][32]

On August 31, 2026, the company said it would rely on the 30-day grace period for interest due on September 1 on its 9.75% and 14% senior unsecured notes to preserve financial flexibility, stating that it had sufficient cash on hand to make the payments; its majority shareholders disclosed in their Schedule 13D filings that they had formed a “group” and were discussing with the company a capital solution to be provided by them. On September 30, the company paid the interest within the grace period, with no event of default, and said it was in active discussions with its key creditors and shareholders.⁠[33][33][33][33][33][33][34][34][34]

On September 29, 2026, the New York Stock Exchange announced that it was commencing proceedings to delist Getty Images’ Class A common stock due to “abnormally low” price levels and immediately suspended trading. The company said it would not appeal, and the stock began trading on the OTC Pink market under the symbol GETY on September 30; the board also postponed the 2026 annual meeting of stockholders, previously scheduled for October 8.⁠[35][35][35][35]

Of its three brands, Getty Images serves enterprise customers with premium creative and editorial images, video, and music; iStock serves small and medium-sized businesses with affordable creative images and video; and Unsplash serves the creator community, mainly with free and low-cost images. In the fall of 2023, the company launched Generative AI by Getty Images, an image generation service trained on its own creative content and designed to be commercially safe, and it also licenses visual assets and metadata to customers developing artificial intelligence tools.⁠[36][14][14][14][14][14]

As of the end of 2025, the company’s three websites offered more than 645 million visual assets, adding more than 11 million each quarter, with more than 2.5 billion searches a year; it had more than 600,000 contributors (more than 83,000 of them exclusive) and more than 115 staff photographers and videographers, and had exclusive arrangements with more than 75 content partners, including AFP, Sky News, and NBC News Archives; it had nearly 700,000 purchasing customers, and its websites supported 23 languages. Revenue in 2025 was $981.3 million, up 4.5% from $939.3 million in 2024, with annual subscriptions accounting for more than half of total revenue and about 75% of revenue coming from exclusive content; it had nearly 1,650 employees, about 61% of them in the Americas.⁠[14][14][14][14][14][14][14][14][14][14][14][14]

As of March 1, 2026, the Getty family stockholders and Koch Icon Investments held 45.9% and 27.6% of the company’s Class A common stock, respectively, with the former entitled to nominate three directors and the latter two. The company owns the “Getty Images” trademarks, but if a third party not affiliated with Getty Investments acquires control of the company, among other circumstances, Getty Investments has the option to acquire all rights to the trademarks for a nominal sum as long as the Getty family stockholders hold more than 27.5 million shares of Class A common stock.⁠[14][14][14][14][14]

Getty Images: Official website: https://www.gettyimages.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[14]

X: Public account: https://x.com/GettyImages (opens in a new window)⁠[36]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/getty-images (opens in a new window)⁠[36]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/gettyimages (opens in a new window)⁠[36]