Getty Images is going private — via a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy, after its $2.1 billion debt load collided with collapsing revenue from iStock and mounting legal costs tied to its AI copyright lawsuits. The move, announced early Tuesday, brings the 36-year-old editorial and stock photo agency under full control of the Getty family and Koch Inc’s investment arm, which will inject up to $533 million into the business. No layoffs or service disruptions are expected: contributors, customers, and employees remain unaffected, and all vendors will be paid in full during the process. The restructuring is slated to close by year-end, pending court approval and creditor consent. Which the company says it already has from a ‘requisite majority.’ It follows the collapse of Getty’s attempted $4.9 billion acquisition of Shutterstock, scuttled after UK competition regulators demanded major concessions that made the deal untenable. Reuters cites AI-generated imagery as a core pressure point, alongside debt that ballooned to $2.1 billion by end-June, while the company’s market valuation cratered to just under $21 million on the NYSE before delisting. Revenue for 2026 is projected at $920 million, with iStock expected to shrink further due to ‘reduced eCommerce demand,’ even as the editorial division. Supplying photos to news outlets globally, sees growth. Getty has spent $105 million on the failed Shutterstock bid and another $17 million on its ongoing litigation against Stability AI, which it accuses of training image-generation models on its copyrighted content without permission. The company remains operational throughout the process: no shuttering, no fire sales, no pause in licensing. What changes is ownership. And the runway. The next step is court confirmation. Then, quietly, Getty Images begins operating as a privately held entity again.