Phil Robinson

This standard license includes 'print runs up to 100,000' - hardly Personal Use

The keyword translation is hopeless - as is all computer translation of single words. English words have so many completely different meanings and there is no way a computer can distinguish between them out of context. Take the word 'tip'. It can mean the point of something, a rubbish dump, a piece of good advice, the money you leave a waiter after a meal... The tip left for a waiter in French is "pourboire" - 'for the drink'. Use that as a search term on the French site and the first results are: a rubbish dump; money left a table; a felt-tip pen; Cape York; a pencil; Red Tip (a flower); an Orange tip butterfly; another rubbish dump.... The results make no sense in a search for, basically, 'gratuity' to anyone who can't speak English and spot the connection. You get exactly the same results on the German site with "Trinkgeld"

I opted out of Novel Use a long time ago (is it still a thing?) I remain in distribution because annoying as the percentage is, it still brings in some decent amounts of money - for example Japan, as mentioned above. I have opted out of a couple of countries for ideological reasons and one for the derisory amounts from any sales I got but otherwise I'm staying in.

I've always liked kingfishers - they're so colourful

I still haven't had a reply to the email I sent on Tuesday. I have sent another.

This is one of the images. If that isn't "in context" I don't know what is. I cannot believe that Bild would have complained about this as an infringement on the copyright of their logo. If they didn't, the fact that Alamy deleted it, in their words "as a precaution" links me in no way whatsoever with the legal action and there is no legal basis for me being expected to contribute to the costs of the legal action. Still waiting for a reply to my email.

Still waiting for a reply to my email.

There are over 6000 images involved. Did a) Bild state that all those 6000 images infringed their copyright? or b) Alamy check all 6000 images to see if they could be considered to infringe copyright?

My point exactly. Still waiting for a reply to my email.

Still waiting for an answer to my email.

No. They clearly didn't assess 6000 images to see whether or not there was an infringement case, they simply did a sweep of the keyword Bild and decided all the photographers concerned should contribute to the legal costs whether or not there was any case for liability. Springer (the publishers) will have complained about certain images (not 6000) and Alamy decided to removed everything, in their own words, 'as a precaution'. That was their decision but it does not form the basis of a legal argument to include uninvolved photographers in the payment of costs. As I said above, there used to be some straightforward full-frame images of just the Bild logo which the publisher would rightly have taken exception to, but unless all 6000 images were included in the original infringement complaint, there is no basis to penalise photographers of images that do not infringe copyright.

Alamy's own submission guidelines.: "If there’s recognisable property in your image you’ll need a property release in order to sell for commercial use. Property is not just limited to buildings, it’s anything identifiable that’s copyrighted/trademarked e.g. logos and branded items. This release must be signed by the property or brand owner. Remember what we said earlier; don’t worry if you don’t have a property release as all of these images can be sold editorially."

Yes, I've had the same. There were some full frame straight copies of the Bild Zeitung logo on the site which I can understand the publishers objecting to. My images contain small reproductions of several newspaper logos on a newspaper stand in Munich - very much 'in context'. Someone more cynical than myself might suspect that the legal team simply did a keyword search for 'Bild' and included everything that came up in the legal action without checking to see whether each image could reasonably considered an infringement. It's a good thing I'm not that cynical.

That's all they do. When you focus a lens on something closer you are basically moving the lens further from the sensor. Extension tubes allow you to move it further away and therefore focus closer. You really should give them a try. They give you a whole new perspective on small things. And they are just adding space, with no effect on image quality, unlike closeup filters - unless you buy very good ones.

I use a (Nikon, sorry) 105mm Micro lens, sometimes with a small extension tube or 1.7x converter. Now I am doing a lot more video, especially where natural history is concerned. The best combination I have found is, perhaps surprisingly, one of the cheapest Nikon kit lenses - 24-200 f4-6.3 and a small extension tube. At the 200 end I can film dragonflies and butterflies at a reasonable distance and at around 50mm it can get amazingly closeups of very small insects. I would certainly recommend extension tubes (though maybe not with a 100-400) They don't effect the image quality as filters can and used with a shortish telephoto they don't take too much light either. And they tend to be a lot cheaper than buying a new lens.