¶The British government effectively killed Getty Images' deal to merge with Shutterstock. In its approval of the proposed deal, the government required divestiture of Shutterstock's editorial business to an approved buyer.

¶That condition proved to be too much for Getty, apparently, as its board voted unanimously to kill the deal if the condition applied. Getty notified Shutterstock today that the deal was dead.

¶In contrast to the U.K., the U.S. Department of Justice gave the companies unconditional approval of the proposed deal earlier this year.

¶Can the companies compete with AI imagery on their own, or do they need the scale they would have achieved through the merger? We'll see. I like preserving competition, particularly for editorial photography, but I worry that no one is well-positioned to take on easily and cheaply generated AI imagery.