Getty Images has announced its acquisition of PicScout, an Israel-based company that developed image identification and tracking technology that is widely used by stock photo distributors to prevent unauthorized use of images.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, and the company declined to comment on a report that the deal was worth about $20 million.

Getty said in a statement announcing the deal that it will “leverage PicScout’s technology in developing new image identification tools for customers.”

The company says it will continue to make PicScout’s services available to its competitors. And Getty CEO Jonathan Klein says, “Getty Images does not plan to change pricing as a result of the transaction.”

Corbis, a PicScout customer and one of Getty’s largest competitors, said through a spokesperson, “We don’t really have a comment on this [acquisition of PicScout] as it was just announced.”

This entry was posted on Friday, April 29th, 2011 at 6:03 pm ET by David Walker and is filed under Business, Copyright, Stock, Web/Tech.