Fleetwood Mac might be one of the most successful rock bands of all time, but it appears that these legendary musicians are yet to cough up the money to buy their own images for their live show.
Earlier this year, there was quite a bit of publicity surrounding Fleetwood Mac when it was revealed that longtime guitarist Lindsey Buckingham had been fired from the group.
While it wasn’t quite clear at the time why Buckingham had been let go, the band welcomed a couple of musicians in his place, including Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and Neil Finn of Crowded House.
Now, the band have been touring the US with their new lineup, and dropping a number of covers from their new members’ old bands, with tracks by Crowded House, Split End, and Tom Petty making an appearance.
However, as a recent review from Consequence Of Sound points out, Fleetwood Mac’s current stage production has been using photographs which still feature a rather prominent Getty Images watermark.
fleetwood mac didn't clear getty images for their tour stage design i'm yelling pic.twitter.com/vhsLJCWz4J
— Carrie Courogen (@carriecourogen) October 9, 2018
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If you’re a little bit confused as to what a watermark is, it’s a way for photographers to ensure that their photos aren’t stolen without their consent.
Getty Images are one of the most prominent stock photo agencies out there, and they will often preview their images with a rather noticeable watermark unless a proper license for the image is purchased first.
The images in question show Stevie Nicks onstage with Tom Petty, and are being used during the band’s performance of Petty’s ‘Free Falling’. While some users on Twitter have surmised that licensing images from Getty must have been Lindsey Buckingham’s old job, others have expressed disbelief that no one even tried to change the watermark to read ‘Petty Images’.
While there’s no word yet as to when this new Fleetwood Mac lineup might be making its way down to Australia, we can only hope that maybe the band will have opened up their own Getty Images account by then.