imageplotter

You can opt out of distributor sales to Russia, but cannot opt out of direct sales ie. to a Russian magazine that purchases direct from Alamy, as appears to have been the case with my sales.

I may have remarked that last point of yours a few times...

Well, it's not Friday, but it's sunny and while we're at it, I might as well post this nugget. Hold the front pages (or at least page 29 of 'Fast Food Daily Newsletter'): https://www.alamy.com/news/#BHM=foo%3Dbar%26qt%3D%26pn%3D1%26ps%3D120%26aoa%3D1%26news%3D%26sports%3D%26entmt%3D%26Videos%3D%26bb%3D1%26md%3DOL25644857%26dt%3D%26gid%3D{355E57FD-AA1A-40AC-A78D-3B680395B77A}%26destxml%3D%26imglst%3D%26orderby%3DDT%26newsseq%3D%26userid%3D{FB4CA307-77DF-4738-AF15-0285E9BB437D}%26rand%3D1722463178915 With Parly in recess and the London news cycle in hibernation mode (give or take some EDL unrest and entertainment photocalls), I'm off for a break. May be in Berlin for a few days next week - dpa's news offering above is so inspirational, I shall go hunting for kebab news pics. Only 2795 kebab shops to cover in Berlin.🤣

Please let's not turn this into an Israel/Hamas discussion, all I want to know if there is a way to limit editorial sales by territory in the same way that I can limit distributor sales.

Does anyone know if individual photographers can limit editorial sales to certain territories? I know they can be limited for distributor sales, and I have had many of the territories limited for a number of years now, as well as novelty use and certain other uses. But obviously, that has so far not been possible for direct editorial sales. Have not seen Russian Federation sales for a while, but this morning, a bunch came in, all Royal images, magazine use on a lowish circulation of 10k. For the rather pitiful sum of $2 gross each. I am uncomfortable with these sales due to the territory. If anyone knows a way to limit editorial sales for certain territories, please let me know.

The Alamy news desk needs more resource. I don't blame the messy feed on the staffers who man the desk at all, I'm sure they try their best and there is a huge amount of images coming in from agencies as well as the ever increasing number of those given news upload rights (Some of whom, I suspect are wire agency pseudos, I think I mentioned this before - there are quite a few pseudos with below 5k images who randomly file from high profile events where Alamy shooters had no access, ie pool/NMA/Royal Rota only events). But the fact remains that Alamy's news feed is far more disorganised and messy than any of the other open access feeds, ie PA Images, Getty News, Rex/Shutterstock. And it seems to come down to lack of resource.

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.