David Kilpatrick

I was told I could opt out in April but have had no notice of how to do so and can't find it - anyone know how?

DACS said that my claim was reduced because Alamy had also claimed for me. The reduction was £1600 and the Alamy claim worth about £400. Mystery to me is that Alamy also claims for my late wife's pseudonym and DACS didn't make any similar reduction on hers. Fortunately overall I also have ALCS and PLS, as a writer and publisher, and the totals have been OK over the last 2-3 years due to playing catch up with unclaimed dues.

I think there's a legal issue with locking contributors into using Alamy to claim for DACS and then refusing to end this when it results like this. It's important for me to claim DACS directly for non-Alamy sales. I do not see how they can possibly have a right, or a claim, to any of that. I have a clear 25 years of ISSN/ISBN non-Alamy history before joining Alamy, and this still counts for DACS. I have a good 15 years of regular non-Alamy uses after joining Alamy and again, these have nothing to do with Alamy. I'm very happy for them to claim for all the book and magazine sales they've ever made for me, as I can not track these or list them (I can find a few with research, and I intend to remove those from my own claim in future). I just don't want Alamy's claim somehow reducing my company/personal one. Rex Features also collect DACS for the few images I have left with them over the last 30 years. It's a small sum and it has no effect on my own claim.

I was frustrated to see my direct DACS had fallen from nearly £2k to only £354 - inexplicable when Richard K's figure had moved from around £200 to over £700, and my late wife Shirley's legacy DACS (it does continue for ever) had fallen from over £300 to £270. But today Alamy dropped $543 Other payment with no deduction into my sales - which I believe will be DACS. That's up from $179 last year. It's not a compensation for a loss of rather vital residual income in retirement, but indicates something significant has changed in the way the Copyright Licensing Agency handles direct claims and Alamy. My Alamy account includes Shirley's work.

Thanks Ian - I guess that could explain my reduction as a lot of my history is now very old, but it does not in any way explain Shirley's figure because she also had a lot of work published in the past. I do note that URLs are now included in uses which can be reported and this could be significant next year, depending on how many you are allowed to report. If you have list the URLs of specific images I could be spending weeks copying them... - David

If it's impossible to withdraw from allowing Alamy to claim, and it has the effect DACS suggest, I'm very unhappy. But they have not been able to explain why my claim has been reduced by 82% in fact, and my late wife's claim by only 11%, when my activity in general has been higher and the submission process for DACS was followed in the same way for both. Nor do they seem particularly interested in trying to explain. I appreciate that once done, it's done, and I can not reverse it but I need to know what to avoid in future. Alamy has claimed in past years ($179 last year for us) without damaging the main claim which should be nearly entirely for non-Alamy stuff, any duplication would be a result of my finding Google books bylines. Perhaps I never authorised Alamy to claim for Shirley, without realising it. It's damaging for me as I'm mostly dependent on pension now, and DACS was worth as much as doing two months' work, it was about the same as I make out of publishing a magazine edition these days and that's all I am doing now, just six times a year, except for stock photography of course! - David

Very odd news from me. I claim for myself and my late wife Shirley. Both claims were repeats of past years, and included new titles/sales added. My total uses are over 18,000 (there was a period when I illustrated step by step books using 400 images at a time and some of these were republished as new ISBNs repurposing the same photographs). In 2019 I received £2294.75 inc VAT (2017, £2404 including Shirley's - 2018, £1903) but for 2020 this fell to £425 which has come at the worst time. Shirley's claims were worth £274 (2018) then £364 (2019) and now £325 which seems balanced. DACS don't seem to be willing to explain why my claim has fallen and simply say it's due to a change using Copyright Licensing Agency data, then when queries again, saying it's because I also had a claim via Alamy (that makes no sense as the Alamy claim is for a very small number of uses). Seems to be nothing I can do about this, or to find out how others could avoid it happening. - David

Any else had their last year's DACS claim (direct) massively reduced? I can't get a straight answer from them, as my late wife's DACS has not been affected (more or less the same this year as last) but mine has been cut by about 75%, very unwelcome when other income is greatly reduced. One of the answers as to why has been 'because Alamy has claimed for me' too - but Alamy only claims a tenner or so, not many hundreds, and I've lost about £1600 compared to previous recent years. I can't find out where, on Alamy, to withdraw my authority for them to claim on my behalf, as if it is having this effect, that's a serious prospect for the future. My wife's work is on the same Alamy account, different pseudonym, but can't work out why it would not affect her claim too (DACS continues to be paid to the heirs of a photographer's work).

Very unusual for me to see a) no change in bank figure due at month end b) no new sales - since beginning of March. Anyone else experiencing this? I have zero transactions - no sales invoiced, no invoices paid, no payments cleared. Wondering if there's a system update or a hiatus in data entry caused by the new PA ownership? David

Biggest market square in Scotland apparently, though I'm sure I have seen larger - maybe not authorised as market squares in the past!

My total due at the end of the month has mysteriously fallen - cleared funds presumably stopped being cleared?

I did not know what I was talking about! I just caught a slew of refunds replaced by higher fees. Very welcome, but may refer to a spread of past sales. Hard to know how this happens but I've had a good number of sales refunded and replaced by significantly higher fees, not the usual currency adjustment thing. I'll try to be around here more, this has not been a good year for me as one year ago Shirley was admitted to hospital and nearly died. She was found to have two brain tumours and treated for Stage IV Melanoma very rapidly, but this only gave 8 months, and she died on July 11th. I still have not filed her last sets of photographs and while I'm getting on with life as she wished me to much of that life is still taken up dealing with her creative making and collecting (almost hoarding, only not the usual mess, labelled and boxed and catalogued...) of 50 years. Rooms full of it, literally. From now on I may not be doing much new photography, as it was always a joint thing travelling, often with her research beforehand. But I have a huge collection of past images and have learned how to digitise them well on camera, not by scanning, and may sit down for a few years going through these. Alamy's change to requiring only that a model release should be available on demand is very useful. It means that any pictures which include her or me can be sold as model released, including her hands or just 'being a person in a landscape', as her executor I can do that now and in future. We never had the time to do signed model releases for every image like that and upload them with the pictures, despite the only models actually being the photographers. I haven't put it on Alamy yet, but this one - the Aphrodite Dress - has ended up my favourite shot of Shirley, taken in 1986. It was hers too, and she kept an undamaged 6 x 6cm Fujichrome perfectly (other frames got damaged by repro). ©me - if anyone wants a signed print on A3 (Epson Cold Press or Cotton textured) email me, reasonable price and 1/3rd to Cancer Relief UK.

After a doldrum period 27th suddenly produced a burst. Very glad I once visited a tourist site so well covered it seemed superfluous - seven sales (all Japan) same shot, $360 gross total uses and this is a shot and client which already sells several times a year - just never so many uses at once.