imageplotter

I had similar issues recently with a pic of Liz Truss, taken on private property at a London hustings, marked editorial only etc by me, sold by Alamy with the following license: Country: United Kingdom Usage: Advertising and promotion, For use on online and print marketing, includes social media digital advertising (Does not include any other Advertising) Media: Promotional brochures/ leaflets/inserts Start: 14 February 2024 Duration: Unlimited The Alamy response to my query was that the client had assured them they had used it as editorial. Why then not sell it with an editorial license? Why sell it as "advertising and promotion" with specifically allowing brochures and leaflets?

This is more than just a bit of tinkering with "family snaps" and it most definitely is not a "charming" apology, whoever may have written it. They can't release the "original" because it is a composite. Beyond the obvious PS mistakes and changes. I don't subscribe to any of the conspiracy theories about the whereabouts of Catherine, but boy has this made it worse than it was to begin with. The Royal Household have got to stop constantly wanting to control their image and put out perfection and fairytales. There have been enough eating disorders in the last few generations of Royals already. KP released images are just the start, the constant stream of DS released free PR images (and their little brothers and sisters issued by the FO, HO and Treasury) are similarly glorifying and the newspapers, aware of their shrinking budgets, lap them up. DS, FO and HO at least have predominantly former wire agency staff doing their pics, but it's less straightforward with the Royal Household. Think of Chris Jackson what you may, but if he had taken that "snap" it wouldn't have gone out to the wires looking like it did.

Ok, just posted this elsewhere here as well, so will delete my post. Getting the same message. Weird as I was logged in and working on keywording and a lightbox, it then seems to have logged me out spontaneously and isn't allowing me back.

A little weekly reminder that IMAGO are still spamming the newsfeed every day and, more commonly, every night. With hundreds of stock images, filed via the newsfeed, often filed as single images. Today's offering includes dozens of single file images of supermarket product shots (lots of single shots of sweets brands, beer crates, board games, fruit and veg). All very clearly stock and not related to any news stories, neither over here nor in the country they were taken (Germany). And still no response from Alamy as to why this continues to be allowed, tolerated, probably even encouraged. This is so demoralising. Does anyone at Alamy still notice or care? If they cannot look after the newsfeed, and, as we are told, no clients ever look at it anyway, then please, for goodness sakes, do what some of the wires do and just make the feed non-public via client login. It looks like an absolutely embarrassing mess.

I know nobody cares any more, but once again, the news feed is cluttered with single image stock uploads by IMAGO. And they even state that they're not news, most of the images are dated several weeks back, and are totally irrelevant to any current new stories. Shambles. They do it every single day, and it's been going on for weeks now.

Sadly, I struggle to smile about it these days, as much as I'd like to. This is my job, all day, every day. And it is being made increasingly hard and unjoyful, not to mention unrewarding. Meanwhile, Imago (and others, but Imago appear particularly active at the mo) continue to spam the news feed day and night, all day, every day.

Actually, that is not true. News and stock photography can be defined as commercial photography by some events and venues these days, that is often the case in the t&c's and sadly is the reason why we are now often required to put things like "use only in relation to event xyz" and "during the news period" or "during the duration of the event" into the news headline disclaimer or embargo note, it is often required by the event organisers/PR before they even grant accreditation. And this happens increasingly now in the last 10 years at events and photocalls. Not being accredited and hence not knowing doesn't mean that the restrictions don't apply to you. Of course, one can get away with it and many do, but that's not the point.

Well, as long as the PA news feed is nice and tidy, nobody seems to care about that other place called Alamy any more where PA then dump all their no-longer-news pics. 🤬 d As a regular news shooter, I feel as valued a a discarded diaper.

Firstly (and perhaps surprisingly, coming from me) a word in defence of some of these foreign agency uploads, particularly dpa. The way news works and is illustrated works very differently in some countries to how UK newspapers work and illustrate news. dpa supply a huge chunk of Germany newspapers, because so many are syndicated, and some take 80+% of images from dpa. They rarely, almost never illustrate news in the typical British tabloid or even broadsheet style (and frankly, these days the T'graph, Times and Guardian are not only no longer in broadsheet format, but they aren't hugely quality driven any more either, but that is another story). Whilst UK newspapers will print a lot of typically quite "in your face" news, protests, politics, general interest, art etc. in bold style, including a lot of people shots of general public, German newspapers are rather more restrained and cautious, or boring if you like. (yeah, I know Bild doesn't, but..). The front pages of the mainstream "serious" papers will often feature very bland images, even graphs, illustrations, or stock-ey type pictures, general public is often seen either as semi-blurred via long exposure or even from behind, things that are usually a bit of a no-no when we file news pics here. Politicians and people of public interest are shown ,of course, but even those pics are rarely as creative and vibrant as we shoot them over here. And a lot of news stories get illustrated with stock type images that fit the theme but aren't new images from that day. Some of this is because of privacy/rights issues, some is cultural. BUT - I fully agree that doesn't justify that all of their stuff comes in as news on the newsfeed. Especially if it's from dpa picture alliance, rather than dpa news agency/staff photographers. A lot of rubbish gets fed into dpa pic alliance. Ditto with a lot of the "daily life" and other non-news images that come in from the Asian agencies. Some are absolute rubbish, some are beautiful, but stock. My gripe is not so much that they're sent in as news, but that they're sent in without any context, and often in single images, clogging the feed. The daily life in xyt is fine if it is then at least grouped together and filed under weather or similar, these do often go in as picture fodder for Times News in Pictures and the like (especially the gazillion drone images that always seem to come in from China, where there are seemingly no restrictions...often beautifully shot. Is it ethical? Probably not, but the Times etc. will use them anyway for their online galleries that pay next to nothing, they don't seem to have any real quality threshold for online pictures of the day galleries these days). But why do these agencies not at least have to follow the same rules we do? Imago is the latest example. A very large agency. Like Alamy, there's a bit of news, but mostly they are a giant stock image pot. For the last few weeks, they have been pushing thousands of images a day on to the news feed, often as single images. Some actual news (premieres, entertainment, politics), some 157% stock. And not just during the night, as Sipa and Zuma and all these cheap mass image-producers usually do, but during the day. Randomly. Why are they not reprimanded for that at all, when it happens all day, every day, for weeks and months? Is Alamy really that desperate to ramp up the stock image collection via any means and from any source, no matter what quality or if they are even captioned? The same goes for the quality of news images accepted onto the feed from UK contributors, btw. A lot of uncropped, uncentered, un-whitebalanced sets are accepted from the same people who have been doing that for years and have got away with it for years, they know better, they don't care because Alamy lets them get away with it. Quality was yesterday. Meh.

Interesting to see that Alamy now has the same registered address as the PA, and the shed in the countryside was presumably abandoned? Does Alamy have any physical people on the ground though in Paddington? (at least some of the news desk contacts seem to be home based?) The PA annual report 2022 isn't published yet. It'll be interesting to see how Alamy is defined and integrated as per the 22 report. I the 2021 report Alamy and its subsidiaries were all classified as "image distribution", Alamy Live news is not mentioned separately anywhere (PA Ltd is classified as "news sport and entertainment information" for comparison). So Alamy is officially just a distribution vehicle for PA. Feels like the news feed is just barely tolerated, and probably phased out eventually.

Dear Alamy, The details in question have yet to be changed on my sales history. They currently remain unchanged, as per my original post. I have yet to see any evidence that the license has been changed, "making the customer account handler" aware is not enough, the actual license issues needs to be changed, and "of course the copyright remains with the contributor" is certainly not enough when the written license terms say otherwise. BTW - the copyright remains with the PHOTOGRAPHER, not the contributor, my copyright of the two images in question is not related to being an Alamy contributor, it is my copyright regardless of that status. Please change the license so that it appears on my sales history with the correct terms ASAP. Thank you.

Thank you for the response. I hope that no further licenses with this wording will be issued.

Well. It certainly incentivises certain photographers and agencies to file en mass, at low, often embarrassingly low quality. We can see whole CFexpress cards of same-samey images being filed via the newsfeed which will grant certain people a fairly quick route to 40%, and via large stock uploads too.

Yes, I was a little surprised to see it, to put it mildly. I've seen two of these now, and if it's a new license type of sorts then I want to opt out now. My copyright ain't going nowhere.

No, they most definitely are not. It's a wildlife pic (non captive). I have since found another one with the same terms, also wildlife, also Moseley Road. If this a new type of license then I want a way to opt out of it. It sets a dangerous precedence, because whoever the "affiliates" are who can also use the image will have no idea who the actual copyright holder is. And by quoting Moseley Road as the copyright holder, there is then an open door for sub-licensing from them, rather than via Alamy. I'd like an explanation from Alamy for the wording.