Flickr users will be able to start making money out of the snaps they post online after the media-sharing site signed a deal with Getty Images, the world's leading photo library company.

Under the terms of the partnership Getty will invite selected Flickr users to join a Flickr-branded photo group on gettyimages.com.

As part of the first commercial licensing deal made through gettyimages.com, Getty will hand-pick photos from the Flickr group and sell images on to its commercial clients, with photographers taking commission for each image.

The group is invite-only and entirely opt-in and will initially feature a few thousand images, according to Getty. The objective is to increase Getty's stock of regionally relevant content, said its vice-president of creative imagery, Andy Saunders.

"Flickr's philosophy of personal sharing and immediacy has already impacted commercial photography," Saunders added.

"The new Flickr collection will expand the definition of stock photography by making it even easier for our customers to find and license imagery that works in the full range of traditional and digital media."

Kakul Srivastava, the Flickr general manager, said the deal is testimony to the website's influential community of photographers.

Srivastava added that Getty gave Flickr "an unbeatable platform, licensing expertise, and a premier brand for members who want to bring their imagery to a worldwide customer base".

Flickr, which is owned by troubled internet giant Yahoo, claims more than 54 million users each month and hosts more than 2bn photos.

The site allows users to choose whether they want their photos published under Creative Commons licences offering different and more flexible publishing rights, although unauthorised copying and reproduction of images is rife on the internet.

Getty Images has moved aggressively to acquire online and offline rivals in the 10 years since it was founded, buying high-end agency Photonica for $51m (£25.8m) in 2005, iStockPhoto.com for $50m in 2006, and UK-based citizen media agency Scoopt in 2007 for an undisclosed amount.

The company itself was bought by private equity firm Hellman & Friedman for $2.4bn in February this year, at which point the investment firm's managing director confirmed that the aim was to turn Getty Images into a global digital media operation.

Getty today told the New York Times that photographers typically earn between $150-$240 (£75-£121) for each rights-managed image that is sold, and $50 (£25) for a non-exclusive image.

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