andremichel

Some beautiful images.

I got nowhere trying to convince "Contributor support" that there is a problem. Chantelle insists it is just normal fluctuations from month to month and not a collapse. I did get a couple more tiny sales appear on 19th and 21st, giving me a total of 3 sales, total gross amount: $5.08 ($2 net!) This compares with my 12 month high point of $889 gross from 25 sales in November 2023.

I don't know if it is related, but all my zooms data has been wiped out too. Alamy measures is currently showing zero everything.

Hi Kumar, Yes I am doing well. Thanks Andy

Hi everyone, I wonder if this has only happened to me this month. I have been averaging more than 20 sales per month for more than a decade now, including this year. Last month I had 24 sales. However this in June, I have only had 1 sale reported at a gross value of $2. This seems statistically implausible without something having broken down in the reporting of sales for my account. Is everyone else seeing normal reporting activity?

This is the response I received from member services. I'm no legal expert, but it sounds to me like Alamy are asking for trouble by granting licences that say one thing e.g. marketing, then expecting the customer to abide by the rules photographers stipulate for their images, that may say something else, e.g. editorial only. We’ve introduced a simpler way our e-commerce customers can license images from the Alamy site. We need to streamline our licensing and pricing options for a user-friendly, intuitive and scalable e-commerce experience that is competitive and reflects the current market in the stock photo industry. This is not something you can opt out of. This strategic simplification can eliminate confusion, boost conversions, and consequently, enhance revenue. These licenses are for our e-commerce customers while our account-managed customers will still mainly be licensing images for specific projects as they have always done, and we will still be offering custom licenses for those who want it. The new license does not affect where images can be used, s­­o if you have marked your images for ‘editorial use only’ the customer will still be bound by the terms of using the images for editorial use only.

Hello, This image of mine is marked as 'Sell for editorial only' : HN7W20 Restrictions Don't sell for advertising and promotion Don't sell for consumer goods I also have it marked as Is there any property in the image? Yes Do you have a signed release for the property? No Today I received a sales report that it was licenced as: Country: Worldwide Usage: Standard License for 1 user only. Allowed usage: across websites, social media, short-form video on video sharing sites, digital publishing, digital marketing, and print runs up to 100,000. Duration: In perpetuity $7-40 gross The image clearly shows a company's name so I expect it is only suitable for editorial use, i.e. not commercial. I am concerned by the words "digital marketing" as it sounds like advertising to me. Can anyone explain why there is nothing for me to be concerned about and why this licence fits within editorial? Thanks Andy

$889 gross from 25 sales. After several months in a death spiral, with just $50 gross in September, my sales have mysteriously come back to life in November.

One other point. The only reason I didn't change all my images to non-exclusive before the new contract came in, was because I did not know anything about it. I only discovered they had changed the contract to allow them to apply $50 penalties on July 31st when I was hit by 2 penalties. I had stopped being an active contributor during the pandemic. I very rarely visit the forum, so did not get to see the notice pinned at the top before it was too late. I did not receive the "marketing email" either as apparently I am not opted in for them. Though I don't see how a marketing email is an appropriate way of communicating such important information anyway. Regular forum contributors are not the majority - not by a long shot. They are not typical. I suspect there are many semi-dormant contributors like myself who will not have known of the change when it came into force.

Regardless of the above discussion and speculation, I don't know whether two penalties I received (July 31 & October 31) are legitimate or not and I see this as a problem. I also do not know whether more penalties are in the pipeline. I asked at the end of July and asked again at the end of October. I am still waiting and may never get a reply. My current cleared funds are only $10. I don't know if they are waiting for them to reach $50 before doing it again. Having been hit by 2 penalties at the end of July, (one of which I had clear proof was wrong and was eventually refunded after a long struggle by me), I do not understand why they would then wait until October 31 to clobber me again, if all this activity had occurred in July. I am looking for transparency and accountability. Is it too much to ask?

I wish I had your confidence. You are clearly reading between the lines. What is critical is not only when the image was sent for infringement work, but what date did they check that my "Exclusive" image was actually not exclusive? If this check occurred after July 31st, then the penalty is illegitimate. From July 31st I am allowed to sell all 13,000 plus images I have on Alamy, including the 5400 I changed, via other outlets. For it to be legitimate, all dates need to be within the small window of July. Date 1: "Exclusive" Image sent to external company for Infringement work Date 2: Potential Infringement reported back to Alamy Date 3: Alamy discover the image is on sale on other outlets so is not in fact exclusive. I have asked for clarification of all these dates, but all I got in return (so far) was silence.

The only response I have had from the infringement team is this: "This case is since the contract change came in. They changed the exclusivity of the image at the end of July which is a month after the contract change came in, the case was opened and then had to be closed prior to them changing it." Maybe it makes sense to you, but it doesn't explain much to me. I find it vague and confusing. I changed the exclusivity of this image (together with 5399 others) end of July. If the infringement activity occurred prior to July 31, it doesn't explain why the penalty was applied 3 months later on October 31st. What's to stop them sending another penalty next week with the same vague explanation? While Chantelle of "Contributor relations" thought it helpful if she gave me a lecture, even though she already knew (through multiple conversations with her and Louise) that all my images had been non-exclusive since July 31: "We won’t be refunding the fee – as already mentioned there is a considerable investment in looking for infringements so it’s necessary for us to pass a portion of the cost and time already spent in opening and closing a case. It is the responsibility of all contributors to ensure their images are marked correctly so we strongly recommend that you check if any of your other images are not marked as exclusive when they shouldn’t be, to avoid being charged again in future." When I read things like this, I feel I am getting nowhere fast. She surely can't be listening. Am I the only contributor to have been hit by these penalties? I don't know why, but this has affected me quite badly. It isn't just because of the money. I am seriously considering closing down my account for good.

I probably made the mistake of contacting 'contributor relations' instead of the Infringement team directly. Communication has got rather confused.

Hi everyone, On October 31st my account was debited by $50, labelled as an “Exclusivity Admin fee”. I had no prior warning or explanation. This is particularly galling, considering I had deliberately changed all my images to non-exclusive 3 months earlier on July 31st due to this new rule in the contract. I had even discussed this change with contributor support at the time. I doubt very much that this is a legitimate penalty, but I have so far got nowhere trying to get a clear explanation, one that I understand, from contributor support of what went wrong. They have also refused a refund point blank. I do not have any inside information, but my theory is that it is due to a flawed process. I suspect it works similar to this: Alamy’s infringement team select Exclusive images in bulk to send off to third party companies for infringement processing on a certain date, which are then slowly worked through one by one over a period of time, trying to detect infringements. Any potential infringements are then flagged back to Alamy who then checks if the images are on sale at other libraries. However if there is any delay whatsoever between the date an Exclusive image is originally selected for infringement processing and the date it is then discovered as being on sale elsewhere (and given a penalty), then the process is flawed and risks generating illegitimate penalties; as in the meantime, the contributor may have changed the image to non-exclusive and started licensing it across other platforms (which is their right to do so). If such a delay spans weeks or even months, then there is a major problem, given that out of the 10s of millions of images on the database, thousands of images are likely changing state between exclusive and non-exclusive on a daily basis. Considering my penalty occurred more that 3 months after I switched all my images to non-exclusive on July 31st, I suspect something like this has occurred with mine. Given I changed 5400 images to non-exclusive on July 31st, I have become rather paranoid over potential further penalties popping up in the same way. If their process is not as I describe above, then I hope that Alamy can come forward and explain how it really works. How do they handle the on-going daily changes in image exclusivity status in parallel to infringement processing progressing and how do they avoid the problems I describe above from happening? Also a clear explanation on why my image received a penalty after 3 months in non-exclusive state would be welcome. I want to understand whether there is a legitimate reason for the penalty or not. Thanks Andy

I've also marked every single exclusive image I have as non-exclusive. All 5700 of them. I don't want to take the risk of any more fines. I expect the introduction of these penalties will force many contributors to do the same. The law of unintended consequences comes to mind.