This is from a New York Daily News Gossip section, but funny how these things turn out to be more than just gossip. The Daily News is reporting that Getty’s celebrity photo division, WireImages, might be in play to be bought by the Reuters Group, who has no such celeb photo division.  You can read the whole article at  http://tinyurl.com/44987gl

Getty bought WireImages from MediaVast in 2007 for $207 million dollars.  Getty was bought in 2008 by the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman for $2.4 billion (yes BILLION) dollars. US dollars. Getty has since gone private. The Daily News says it’s sources figures WireImages will sell “north of $300” million. Wow.

What caught our attention in the story was this paragraph –

“The source adds that Getty fueled suspicion among photographers who work there when it began asking West Coast based WireImage photographers for the copyrights to their photos from the past few years — presumably so that if the deal went through, Reuters would be ensured an archive of celebrity shots.”

So, they want the copyrights.  At least so what they sell has some value to the buyers. As we say all along, your copyright is valuable. Just look at the amounts being tossed about.

Our opinion about this story? Well, just read the headline to this post.