Getty Images helps out the bloggers with new free photo embeds

Yes, the world’s biggest image library is embracing the age of social media and aiding the blogosphere. Getty Images has launched a new feature, which allows anyone to use its stock photos legally and for free — and it’s as easy as copying an embed code.

All bloggers have to do to use a shot from a large portion of Getty’s royalty free stock image library is search for a photo they’d like to use, then copy the related embed code and paste it in a blog post. The image will then appear, along with a line below featuring Getty’s logo, the name of the photographer, share icons and links to the original image.

Of course, the images are also available for sale — and clicking on the embedded photos will take you to a page where you can purchase the image from Getty. It’s an interesting move from an image library, where the general strategy is to give out heavily watermarked free versions and charge for even a small, low resolution download. Now Getty is essentially giving out free samples to the larger web, and hoping the bloggers who are distributing its images will help find it new customers. In addition to that, by embedding the images, users agree to allow Getty to gather data about where they’re placed and how they’re used, and even put advertising over the embeds at a future date.

The functionality is quite limited at this stage though — for example, you aren’t given the option to customise the size of the image or tailor it to the width or height you’d like in your blog post. There is also a hefty accompanying terms and conditions page for users of the embeds, which stipulates that the images cannot be used for commercial purposes, only editorial reasons (“relating to events that are newsworthy or of public interest”).