Getty has now licensed 250,000 images from Flickr users. Is Facebook next?

This morning, Getty Images announced that in the past two years it has added over 250,000 Flickr images to its “Flickr Collection“, which features work from over 115 countries.

This isn’t exactly ground breaking; that’s an extremely tiny percentage of Flickr’s 6 billion photos that are making it into the professional collection. But it does show that there’s still a small reason for professionals to post their images to Flickr. Getty Images says it has a team of photo editors who work to increase the number of images within the Flickr Collection and ensure that the Collection has an abundance of content from all regions around the world. In September 2011 alone, 30,000 new images were available to license from the Flickr Collection and over 1,000 images are uploaded on daily basis. There are currently more than 76,000 images submitted from U.S.-based artists and contributors.

“The Flickr collection has proved a massive success for us in our aim to bring a different and a varied range of imagery to the marketplace,” explained Andrew Saunders, Getty Images SVP of Creative in the press release. “For us, the 250,000 image milestone emphasizes how dynamic and engaged our Flickr community of contributors truly is and we continue to be thrilled by the imagery being creating for this real life collection.”

According to AllThingsD, this photograph from, Michael Bodge is Getty’s best-seller:

When do you think Getty Images will start its Facebook collection? Considering the social network sees 100 million photo uploads a day. Or how about pulling from a better collection of curated photos? Considering all the pros are leaving Flickr for 500px.