Ollie

Cull the Collection: The collection needs to be reduced in size. Alamy seems proud of its collection size. The result is that many searches simply overwhelm the potential buyer with the hundreds or thousands, or tens of thousands, or—really—hundreds of thousands of images that will be found by a keyword search. There are many bad images in the collection, many similars, and many duplicates. These are dross that get in the way of the buyer’s attempt to find an image that will suit his needs. You should dedicate some staff members to culling these images from the collection. It does not ta

Revoke Alamy's invented definition of "exclusivity" when applied to works of art. Contributors feel that Alamy has not maintained the trust it initially promised when it was created twenty years ago. A major serious blow to this trust was when Alamy decided to lower contributors’ commission to 40%, effective January 2019, unless Alamy was given exclusive representation of an image. “Exclusivity” in the stock imagery field has always meant that the photographer is affirming that an image (or all of his images) is only being marketed through the particular stock agency where it is placed. It

I think there is a huge difference between a "student project" and a "dissertation." "Dissertation" to me usually means a publication resulting from research that usually is related to obtaining a PhD or some other serious professional credential. Some years ago I licensed one of my images (through my own website) for $100 to be used on the cover of a PhD dissertation. It would have been outrageous to have licensed that image for the price Alamy is getting for these "student projects, presentations, or essays." Alamy should remove "dissertations" from the list of allowed uses at those "aca

20 sales so far this month. About average for me. All but three are developing world cultural or travel shots.

Bill: I agree with you on the question of dating. I hope I didn't miss many. I did decide that the date didn't matter in cases where the subject is simply a representation of an object--flowers or animals, for example, or a portrait of someone who represents an ethnic group type.

As others have said, the answer is yes, 35mm slides can be scanned and submitted to Alamy. In my experience, scanned slides are not as sharp as images that are now captured digitally, therefore it is advisable that they be submitted to Alamy as "Archival", where QC makes allowances for somewhat softer submissions. You have to apply first to be able to submit through the Archive channel. In recent months I've been working on 35mm slides going back to the early 60s. I bought Vuescan software (about $85 I think) to restore communication between my Nikon Coolscan V scanner, which wa

You are reading this too narrowly and are not bracing for the next step against us. Contract para 2.7: The Contributor acknowledges and accepts that Images of artworks, OR that are not protected by copyright, OR that are in the public domain OR for which copyright ownership is unknown must never be marked as “Only available on Alamy” . Note the "OR"s (my emphasis added). It's not just images of artworks Alamy is saying can't be designated as Exclusive. It's also images not protected by copyright, images in the public domain, images whose copyright ownership is unknown. Te

Thanks for posting this very useful question. My experience with both Pixsy and Copytrack has been disappointing. I’ll be interested in seeing what others say about Image Rights. I uploaded several thousand images to Pixsy in 2015 and 16. During 2016-18 I submitted maybe 15 cases for their pursuit. I received one payment of about $160 for this effort. A lot of cases they decided not to pursue, usually because they did not have legal representation in the infringer’s country. One of the time-consuming aspects of working with them is that their “hit” results include hits in countries

OK to remove "Don't sell for editorial." Personal Use should be limited to a small size--or with price increasing as size increases. Many of these are highly suspect. To get a lower price we sometimes pay for a hotel/motel room in advance, knowing the funds are not refundable if plans change. The concept of "low price/no refund" is a common and well-understood marketing practice. All PU sales should also be non-refundable. If you're going to revise the Optional page on AIM then why not also eliminate the "Assign Existing Releases" feature? I recall Alamy saying some time ag

I went exclusive with Alamy at the beginning of the year, removing my images from two other agencies where sales were far less frequent than at Alamy, and where prices were often only one-half or less what Alamy is getting. But no, I've seen no increase in sales. This years sales numbers and sales revenue are both slightly behind where I was this time last year. Not particularly bad, but certainly no noticeable improvement. In addition to going exclusive I've been using spare time the last several months to review the keywording of old images. When Alamy changed its AIM system (was that t

I did my own review of Google search results recently. Using rather narrowly-defined searches so there would not be thousands of images found, I found that Google found my images in the Alamy collection much more frequently than those (same ones) in my PhotoShelter website collection. So I asked PhotoShelter for their comment. After complimenting me on my on-page metadata (keywords, captions, etc.) they offered the following advice: The main thing you will want to pay attention to when it comes to driving traffic to your site is backlinks (people who link back to your website) a

I have opted out of sales to the Czech Republic, but not to Slovenia (haven't had any). But if Slovenia prices are as low as those to the Czech Republic I will opt out as soon as it happens to me. Opting out is the only way we have of opposing these sales at offensively low prices.

The automated response comes first. Shortly afterwards you should get a reply from a real person. Unfortunately, these replies are rarely satisfying. The low prices you have noted are becoming increasingly common. Many contributors have also noted that their number of monthly sales is also declining the last 2-3 months. We all need to speak up about this. These prices are basically an insult to serious photographers. The problem is that with over 150 million images Alamy does not seem to be concerned about alienating its contributors, figuring that if we stop submitting it will hardly b

"Czech Republic, Editorial, Editorial, Website, Bulk discount, flat rate per image Not enough for a stale donut." I've opted out of Czech Republic sales. Everyone else should do the same. Maybe market forces will eventually start to work. Didn't know about Slovenia and Serbia. If similarly low prices are being given those two countries I'll opt out of them too. But Alamy seems to have missed the creation of the country of Serbia; it isn't in the list. Nice to know we can still opt out of the country of Yugoslavia. Is Alamy in the news business?

" How can a license for Editorial website usage have a print run?" Good question. Let us know what Alamy says.