Alamy

Hello everyone, During these uncertain and challenging times that we're all facing in our personal and professional lives, you may notice some changes over the coming months that have an impact on how you normally work with Alamy as contributors. I thought it would be best to broadly outline some of the key areas below whilst a number of staff are on extended leave: You may well notice considerably longer QC approval wait times We're unable to provide our usual level of support via the Contributor Relations team. Responses will either be severely delayed or you may be pointed back to the support forum here until further notice Updates to the "What Should I Shoot" tool will be paused Social media updates and trends tips will be reduced / paused Contributor marketing / guides / tips communications via email will be paused Response to new unauthorised use claims will be delayed For any urgent legal or copyright inquiries you have, you can email the team via copyright@alamy.com Elsewhere in the business we're committed to operating as usual but our customers are also not immune to the business challenges we all face globally. Thanks for your continued hard work, support and patience with us during this time. We'll be doing our absolute best to keep things as normal as possible for you. Stay safe and take care. James Allsworth Head of Content

To be clear, as written in the email to inform you of this in advance - the distributor duplicated their reporting of sales to us which means some images were billed twice. You will still be paid for the first usage. The second sale, which has not been paid to you, is now being cancelled which will show as a refund. To all: More widely regarding payment times - we are of course not immune to the difficulties facing the business world at the moment in securing payments. We're doing everything we can, as best we can - that, I can assure you. I'll post up another thread now about how the current situation may be affecting your experience with us as contributors. Edit - here's the thread: https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/12807-the-contributor-experience-whilst-were-all-tackling-the-covid-19-pandemic/ James Allsworth Head of Content

Hi all, We're currently undertaking more work in order to ensure that images that are marked as exclusive to Alamy, are in fact exclusive. We're aware a few users within the forum have questioned the need to be accurate in this info, so we just wanted to say that it is very important you are accurate when marking images as exclusive to Alamy or not. We're currently working through a number of processes designed to help protect the integrity of the exclusivity declaration. We've previously sent an email out to all users who had content marked as exclusive which stated the following: "We’re in the process of looking over the Alamy collection to help ensure accuracy of the “Exclusive to Alamy” declaration currently applied to certain images. Your account currently has images marked as Exclusive to Alamy. As a general reminder, “Exclusive” images cannot be available through any other third-party licensing, sales or distribution channels (where not supplied through Alamy). You can sell your images on a personal print site (without a stock licencing option) and still mark these as exclusive to Alamy. Selling prints and stock licences on your own website is also fine. If your collection contains images of artworks these can never be marked as Exclusive to Alamy, unless you're the artist. If you’re already sure that everything is in order then there is no need for further action. If you’re unsure though, please review your collection and update the “Exclusive to Alamy” annotation of your images where necessary to prevent any future issues." Images marked as exclusive to Alamy earn 50% commission per direct licence sold as apposed to the 40% for non-exclusive. We'll soon be taking further action against users that continue to be mark images as exclusive incorrectly as a breach of contract. Please make sure your information around exclusivity is accurate - this keeps you in agreement with the contract and free of any risk of action in the future. Best wishes Alamy

There has been no sales downturn. We're seeing strong growth in volume and revenue across the board. All of this information is viewable in the "Balance of Account" section of your dashboard against each sale. Thanks Alamy

Without going round in circles here, the original quote was: "As a general point of feedback, it would be handy if the sales details detailed the fees applied (e.g. novel use sale, distributor sale, customer used a special voucher, etc so that we're not left scratching out heads as to why our portion of the sale is not 40/50% of the sale price." None of these scenarios should cause confusion on the commission split. For any sales type that affects commission rate, the sales type is listed in balance of account.

Affiliate commission is written and listed out next to the sale entry within balance of account. Best Alamy

Don't quite follow? Other than distributor sales, none of those other scenarios translate to anything other than 40% (non exclusive), 50% (exclusive). The % rate is always listed in your balance of account. Alamy

Novel Use specification wasn't listed, but the sales details were presented in this way:

To be clear and avoid confusion - this sale was via a Korean distributor for a very limited use - internal use only for Data AI algorithm training. Images taken from the novel use pool only. Alamy

Meet the Alamy Content Team at The Photography Show next month. Connect and network with Alamy and hundreds of other photographers and exhibitors from around the world at The Photography Show in Birmingham. Where: Birmingham NEC When: 14th - 17th March 2020 We'll be at stand H67 so come along and say hello. You'll be able to ask questions to contributor relations, quality control and the live news team. You can also use our exclusive discount code ALATPS20 to get 20% off a single adult ticket!

PA Media Group, the UK-based news and information business, has acquired Alamy, a leading supplier of stock imagery. Founded 20 years ago, Alamy has one of the world’s most diverse creative and editorial stock imagery collections, comprising almost 200 million photographs, vectors and 360-degree panoramic images. The business has close to 100,000 customers in more than 150 countries, working across a range of sectors including publishing, design, advertising and broadcast. The acquisition sees the PA Media Group enter the stock imagery market for the first time. It also supports the Group’s long-term strategy to diversify its business and consolidate its position as the UK’s leading provider of cross-platform news, sport and entertainment data, content and services. Alamy will complement PA Media Group’s editorial picture syndication business, PA Images, whose archive charts more than 100 years of British history, along with royal, entertainment, sport and news photography. Clive Marshall, Chief Executive of PA Media Group said: “This transformational acquisition will significantly increase our customer base and provide the PA Media Group with a strong presence in the international market for the first time. “Alamy has created a fantastic ecosystem of content creators and content users around a superior e-commerce platform. The acquisition adds real scale and diversity to PA Media Group’s photo services. As a result, customers will have access to a wider, richer image portfolio which combines great editorial and stock imagery, accessible through a global platform. “In addition, this acquisition will further strengthen the financial performance of the company and help secure the future of our core news agency business.” James West, co-founder of Alamy, said: “PA Media Group is a natural home for Alamy. As well as having one of the UK’s most comprehensive photo archives, PA shares our ethos of integrity and quality, and has an excellent reputation built over 150 years. “Alamy can look forward to a fantastic future as part of the PA Media Group.” Here's a short video from James West: Here are some answers to some initial questions you may have: Does this acquisition change anything for me? In terms of commission rates/contracts/processes, etc? No, it doesn’t. Alamy continues to operate as usual. Alamy prides itself on offering a better commission rate than most other agencies. Will PA Media Group continue to offer the same commission rates to Alamy’s existing contributors? There are no plans to change that. How do PA Images’ commission rates compare with Alamy’s? The two businesses operate different models – for instance, PA Images’ relationships are mainly with agencies while Alamy works with a wider community of individual photographers. As such, there is no like-for-like comparison between the two business’ payment structures. Are there plans to reach parity? If so, in what direction? There is no like-for-like comparison between Alamy’s and PA Images’ payment structures. The two businesses continue to operate separately. Are Alamy’s contributor images going into the PA Images archive? Alamy’s and PA Images’ archives will sit alongside each other. There are no plans to add Alamy’s portfolio to the PA Archive. Will Alamy’s contributor images be distributed via the PA newswire? There are no plans to distribute Alamy’s contributor imagery via the PA newswire. Will Alamy content be sold by PA Images? At present, Alamy contributor sales continue to be managed within the Alamy platform and via Alamy’s distributors. However, ways of working will be reviewed over the coming months and we will consider what elements to integrate and which to keep separate. Will there be any change to the way rights are managed? No, there will not. The PA Media Group has long history of building successful relationships with photographers and photography agencies and ensuring that rights are managed. For the full FAQ on the above announcement, please visit the following page: https://pamediagroup.com/faqs-pa-media-group-acquires-alamy/ Best, Alamy

PA Media Group, the UK-based news and information business, has acquired Alamy, a leading supplier of stock imagery. Founded 20 years ago, Alamy has one of the world’s most diverse creative and editorial stock imagery collections, comprising almost 200 million photographs, vectors and 360-degree panoramic images. The business has close to 100,000 customers in more than 150 countries, working across a range of sectors including publishing, design, advertising and broadcast. The acquisition sees the PA Media Group enter the stock imagery market for the first time. It also supports the Group’s long-term strategy to diversify its business and consolidate its position as the UK’s leading provider of cross-platform news, sport and entertainment data, content and services. Alamy will complement PA Media Group’s editorial picture syndication business, PA Images, whose archive charts more than 100 years of British history, along with royal, entertainment, sport and news photography. Clive Marshall, Chief Executive of PA Media Group said: “This transformational acquisition will significantly increase our customer base and provide the PA Media Group with a strong presence in the international market for the first time. “Alamy has created a fantastic ecosystem of content creators and content users around a superior e-commerce platform. The acquisition adds real scale and diversity to PA Media Group’s photo services. As a result, customers will have access to a wider, richer image portfolio which combines great editorial and stock imagery, accessible through a global platform. “In addition, this acquisition will further strengthen the financial performance of the company and help secure the future of our core news agency business.” James West, co-founder of Alamy, said: “PA Media Group is a natural home for Alamy. As well as having one of the UK’s most comprehensive photo archives, PA shares our ethos of integrity and quality, and has an excellent reputation built over 150 years. “Alamy can look forward to a fantastic future as part of the PA Media Group.” Here's a short video from James West: Here are some answers to some initial questions you may have: Does this acquisition change anything for me? In terms of commission rates/contracts/processes, etc? No, it doesn’t. Alamy continues to operate as usual. Alamy prides itself on offering a better commission rate than most other agencies. Will PA Media Group continue to offer the same commission rates to Alamy’s existing contributors? There are no plans to change that. How do PA Images’ commission rates compare with Alamy’s? The two businesses operate different models – for instance, PA Images’ relationships are mainly with agencies while Alamy works with a wider community of individual photographers. As such, there is no like-for-like comparison between the two business’ payment structures. Are there plans to reach parity? If so, in what direction? There is no like-for-like comparison between Alamy’s and PA Images’ payment structures. The two businesses continue to operate separately. Are Alamy’s contributor images going into the PA Images archive? Alamy’s and PA Images’ archives will sit alongside each other. There are no plans to add Alamy’s portfolio to the PA Archive. Will Alamy’s contributor images be distributed via the PA newswire? There are no plans to distribute Alamy’s contributor imagery via the PA newswire. Will Alamy content be sold by PA Images? At present, Alamy contributor sales continue to be managed within the Alamy platform and via Alamy’s distributors. However, ways of working will be reviewed over the coming months and we will consider what elements to integrate and which to keep separate. Will there be any change to the way rights are managed? No, there will not. The PA Media Group has long history of building successful relationships with photographers and photography agencies and ensuring that rights are managed. For the full FAQ on the above announcement, please visit the following page: https://pamediagroup.com/faqs-pa-media-group-acquires-alamy/ We have sent notice of this out to you via email, but if you have opted out of marketing emails from us then you won't receive this. You can update your email preferences via the account details section of your contributor dashboard. Best, Alamy

This image is from a feature set of the world's first hijab-wearing professional wrestler. We are the only agency to hold pictures of this Malaysian champion, and usages resulted in UK National newspapers including the Guardian's most coveted Double Page Spread on Monday and the Sunday Telegraph. Alamy

For the same reason as always I'm afraid - we'd love to be more interactive here but we've got a small team and other priorities have to come first. As you'll find, the more we respond to, the more follow-up questions there are and then people can feel aggrieved when they don't get a response. With the colour space issue, I think I recall actually calling you to try and clear up the confusion, so I hope that shows that we are not being neglectful in our responsibilty to support our contributors! A webinar / video / Q+A type thing is not a bad idea, we'll have to see if we can make that work for some point this year. Cheers James A

Alamy will have a stand there which will be manned by a few members of the team at any given time. Personally I'll be there on at least one of the days, probably more but not sure which ones yet. I would say though that if you do have any forensic / data driven or technical details for discussion, the trade show floor is probably not the best place and we'd of course welcome you to email these to us in order for us to help in a more detailed way. For example, our previous chats and discussions about the search engine and more recently, colour space, have been heavily covered and I wouldn't want us to re-tread old ground. That said if you do have any specific questions for us, let us know. Another note related to this discussion and the meeting in Ely - as others have previously said, no trade secrets were revealed or any dramatic inside information was given out. As discussed at the meet itself, context is everything and when things are in black and white they can be over-analysed, mis quoted and mis-interpreted so I can see why a written summary wouldn't necessarily be helpful. As always, the best advice I can give for you to succeed on Alamy is to spend your energy and time producing relevant, strong photography that is well keyworded. Over-analysing or over-working any other element of the process, including post-processing, the workings of the search engine etc are far less important than the basics! Cheers James A

I have to jump in here to clarify before a thread goes down a certain path - Our desire / target is to have all images categorised - We feel image categorising is important and encourage you to do so on all images - We are exploring the best ways to go about this, and there are many ways, including looking at AI methods Cheers James A

Good ideas Ian, thanks. We've considered setting up similar options "pre-upload" in the past but have always moved against it because we want to keep the process simple, however I think there's merit in this and we'll revisit for a future update. Best, James A

Hi All, Your input is required, and there's a triple potential benefit to what we're proposing so we want to get it right. This post details a proposed change that we think will: - Make the restrictions process far simpler for you, which means less time in admin mode and more time in photography mode - Make the process of buying licences for customers even simpler, which means higher potential for more sales - Simplify our back-end technical logic, allowing us to make improvements to the site and search engine much quicker For those of you who have been with us many years, you may recall the system we used to have where image restrictions were available for every possible end use. This system was overly complex and due to customer demand we needed to simplify it down to just 4 possible restrictions, with only 3 of the 4 being available to be selected. They are: Don't sell for advertising and promotion Don't sell for consumer goods Don't sell for editorial Don't sell for personal use including single copy, non-retail wall art prints Even though this is a huge improvement on the old system, from customer feedback and activity, it’s clear that this restriction system is still overly complex, so we are proposing some simple changes that will make life easier and hopefully lead to increased sales potential as a result. We think this will work and is the right approach, but before we press on, we want your thoughts, feelings and feedback. This is what we are proposing: A removal of the restriction “Don’t sell for editorial” A combining of the advertising and consumer goods restriction to just be: “Don’t sell for commercial”. Keeping the “Don’t sell for personal use” the way it is now. So essentially, it will mean all images on Alamy will be available for the editorial licence. You’d be able to restrict commercial use and personal use if you wish (which encompasses consumer goods, advertising and personal prints). Therefore there are no changes to the “editorial only” restrictions you can place now. This will make applying restrictions easier for you, whittling the restriction options down to two. This will make things far simpler for the customer, allow us to remove some of the complex combinations of logic that have to be applied behind the scenes whilst essentially still allowing you to be able to restrict for what’s important to you. So – what do you think? Can you foresee this causing you any issues? Do you think this is a good idea? Let us know. Cheers Alamy

Impossible to say with 100% certainty. The question you have to ask yourself is "does my image contain artwork that takes up more than 1/3 of the total frame, by which someone else could claim copyright to?" If you're not sure, don't take the risk. Cheers Alamy

The benefit is that you earn a higher commission for images exclusive to us. If you mark images as exclusive when they are not, then this could be treated as a breach of contract leading to possible consequences including removal of images from the site. Our sales staff can view images marked as exclusive and we do have options of sharing exclusive images to customers if that's what they require. Cheers Alamy

These are different images. Cheers Alamy

We can refer you to the contributor help pages for that, but for ease here's the info you need from that very page: What classifies an image as Exclusive to Alamy? You will receive 50% of each direct sale for images that are Exclusive to Alamy and 40% for images that are not Exclusive to Alamy. Below we have answered some frequently asked questions surrounding what classifies an image as exclusive. Images of artwork Images of artwork in context can be marked as exclusive. The general rule of thumb is that the artwork can’t take up any more than 1/3 of the image frame. Different versions of the same image Similar versions of the same image that are available on other licencing platforms can’t be marked as exclusive (i.e. B&W, different crop, or slight adjustments). However, images that are from the same shoot, but shot from a different angle or the model is posing differently, is considered a different image and can be marked as exclusive if that particular shot is not available elsewhere. Facebook and Instagram You can upload exclusive images to Facebook and Instagram. Selling direct Images can be sold through your own website or directly to customers and still be marked as Exclusive on Alamy. POD sites Images that are available via POD sites can be marked as exclusive as long as they’re not offered for additional licencing through the POD site. We consider additional products as mugs and towels the same as prints. Cheers Alamy

Just a quick one on this from us - sorry for the confusion regarding the number. There has been a lag on the number pulled from the database for the email and what today's total may be. All other info is correct, the exact number may not match though in all cases. Cheers Alamy

Hi David - totally agree, we'll look into rolling out a fix as soon as possible if there is an issue our side. Best, Alamy

Wait - who let you in?