Today, Getty Images announced a distribution partnership with Uncensored Interview, which holds an extensive archive of high-quality broadcast clips of interviews of musicians. The more than 2,500 clips will now be available to Getty Images’ customers. Musicians featured in the archive include Amanda Palmer (pictured), The Postelles, School of Seven Bells, The Watson Twins, Henry Rollins, Meshell Ndegeocello, and others.

Studio Daily spoke with Getty Images VP of Entertainment Partnerships and Development Vince Bannon and Uncensored Interview Co-founder/Chief Content Officer Melinda Lee. Here’s what they had to say.

Studio Daily: Tell me about how Getty Images and Uncensored Interview formed this partnership.

Melinda Lee: Prior to Uncensored Interview, I headed up the Digital Media and International group within the content licensing group at MTV Networks. While I was there, I spearheaded a company-wide, all media deal with Getty Images to give all MTVN producers access to Getty’s expansive image library, which was the first of its kind. I met and worked with Vince Bannon then, along with other forward-thinking Getty executives. The deal was progressive as it embraced and encouraged content creation in a new media world and allowed for aggressive and experimental content creation on any emergent platform and outlet. Eventually, I was bitten by the start-up bug and started up my own content-creation company designed with Getty Images’ strategy in mind. I created Uncensored Interview as wholly-owned interview footage archive and started with musicians, already a sweet spot for Getty Images. We (Getty Images and Uncensored Interview) had an immediate synergy, and a deal to supplement Getty’s existing archive of Entertainment content with Uncensored Interview’s library of breaking musicians made immediate sense.”

Studio Daily: What will the deal with Uncensored Interview bring to customers?

Vince Bannon: In today’s digital media landscape, customers are looking for unique, dynamic content to publish on their websites to make the user’s experience much more valuable as well as maximizing their site’s traffic. Getty Images’ customers can easily exploit Uncensored Interviews’ white-labeled content for use on both traditional media programming and on new emerging platforms worldwide. The content is modular in that it can stand alone as well as be easily paired with other digital content available from Getty Images, such as images, other footage and music, to make packaged programs. Uncensored Interview’s footage features musicians that bridge the gap between popular music of different regions. Many of the artists maintain mainstream popularity overseas, but are only now being introduced to U.S. audiences. In addition, the personalities featured are indie, but the topics covered in the interviews are universal. With Uncensored Interview’s premium production style and Getty Images’ expansive customer reach, the relationship enables a new form of how artists are being discovered by introducing musicians through their points of view.

Studio Daily: What kinds of customers especially need clips related to the music industry? What kinds of projects are these clips used for?

Melinda Lee: Uncensored Interview’s content is unique in that it is produced to be both timely and timeless. It is timely in that artists talk about topics that are newsworthy and often serve as breaking news for the blog community. Websites can take advantage of the premium quality to maintain stickiness, higher traffic and better user experience. Yet the content is produced to retain its relevance over time, and producers creating shows with long life cycles, for example on pop culture, politics or music, can rely on Uncensored Interview’s content to be evergreen and relevant.

Studio Daily: With more and more “free” footage on the web, how are organizations like Getty Images and Uncensored Interview making premium footage more appealing to end users?

Melinda Lee: The floodgates have opened up for content on the web and, often times, consistent quality (production and technical) and rights are not secured. In the case of Uncensored Interview and Getty Images, we are providing professionally produced content that is scalable while getting the sound bites that only top tier interviewers can get. Uncensored Interview secures all of the rights from the get-go, and customers have an instilled confidence in the footage. It is a relief for both media companies and independent producers to trust their product and to have an archive that maintains production value and rights, and a reliable resourceful distribution platform like Getty Images, enables use of content across multiple projects.

An important asset in this relationship is support of the artists featured within the Uncensored Interview archive. Artists are excited for the distribution potential that Getty Images offers and a deal of this sort provides a new promotion and marketing hub for these artists. Uncensored Interview’s content further compliments Getty Images’ strategy of providing a comprehensive entertainment offering of both stills and footage of mainstream as well as emerging artists.