According to Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, Flickr was inches away from releasing FlickrStock, allowing users to license their images for a fee. Apparently Getty convinced the Yahoo executive that an exclusive deal with them was much better.
Getty protected its valuable Istockfoto asset thanks to this deal and delayed the opening of the flood gates. I would love to have heard how Yahoo was convinced to drop such potential revenue. Or is getty paying them a fee to be their “exclusive” representative ?