Visual China Group (VCG) is a Chinese

photo A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now crea ...

and media agency. Established in 2000, it is a supplier of stock multimedia content to the commercial media industry. VCG is currently the largest stock image and media footage provider in China and third largest in the world. Since 2006, VCG has been the exclusive distributor of

Getty Images Getty Images Holdings, Inc. is an American visual media company and is a supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three markets— creative ...

' library in China. In January 2016, Unity Glory International, an affiliate of VCG, announced that it would acquire the image licensing business of Corbis. Unity Glory licenses the Corbis libraries to Getty for distribution outside of China via VCG. In early 2018, it acquired photo sharing website

500px 500px (pronounced "five hundred pixels") is a global online photo-sharing platform that is a subsidiary of Visual China Group. It is based in Toronto, Canada. It was co-founded by Oleg Gutsol and Evgeny Tchebotarev on October 31, 2009. History E ...

Controversy

In April 2019, after the

Event Horizon Telescope The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a large telescope array consisting of a global network of radio telescopes. The EHT project combines data from several very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) stations around Earth, which form a combined arr ...

project captured an image of the

Messier 87 Messier 87 (also known as Virgo A or NGC 4486, generally abbreviated to M87) is a supergiant elliptical galaxy with several trillion stars in the constellation Virgo. One of the largest and most massive galaxies in the local ...

supermassive black hole A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun (). Black holes are a class of astronomical obj ...

— the first such image in history — it was discovered that VCG had falsely claimed ownership of the image and listed it for sale on its website, failing to attribute its source (which had licensed it for free distribution and use under a

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

license). The attempt to monetize a historic image meant for public distribution was criticized as being

opportunist Opportunism is the practice of taking advantage of circumstances – with little regard for principles or with what the consequences are for others. Opportunist actions are expedient actions guided primarily by self-interested motives. The term ...

. On the heels of the controversy,

Sina Weibo Sina Weibo (新浪微博) is a Chinese microblogging ( weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily acti ...

users (including the

Communist Youth League of China The Communist Youth League of China (CYLC), also known as the Young Communist League of China or simply the Communist Youth League (CYL), is a youth movement of the People's Republic of China for youth between the ages of 14 and 28, run by the ...

) discovered other images that VCG was also claiming ownership of and selling, including corporate logos, and imagery of the Chinese flag and

national emblem A national emblem is an emblem or seal that is reserved for use by a nation state or multi-national state as a symbol of that nation. Many nations have a seal or emblem in addition to a national flag A national flag is a flag that represents ...

. On 11 April 2019, VCG was ordered by authorities in

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...

to address these issues. The next day, VCG stated that it had "taken down all non-compliant photos and closed down the site voluntarily for a revamp in accordance with related laws." The controversy caused its share prices to fall by 10% for three consecutive working days.

References

{{media-company-stub Photo archives in China Stock photography Getty Images Mass media companies of China Companies based in Beijing Mass media companies established in 2000 Chinese companies established in 2000 Mass media in Beijing