imageplotter

I've not given you any red arrows. An am generally not too bothered about these gimmicky tools (which attempt to polarise opinion) and tend to use mostly just likes/positive arrows if any at all. Anyway. Back to the alamy contract, which is sadly not a gimmick.

Vaccines are very important, but this thread is perhaps too important to too many contributors to dilute the subject now? Just a thought. Question - are any further/final updates still due from Alamy, or is this it now, in terms of the contract in its final form?

"Also, Alamy is probably sitting on a good chunk of cash from accounts that have not reached payment threshold or erven have become completely orphaned with no bank account or other details; not making much from it with the current low interest rates though." Indeed. And now giving these contributors just 20%, it'll be come even more likely that they'll file a few hundred, not see returns, give up filing, leave the account dormant, not reach payment threshold and thereby increase the chunk of cash sitting around. Hmm.

A tiny number. I'd hazard a guess that they're unlikely to be Alamy exclusive. If your stock images have the potential to earn $25k with one agency, why would you want to sell them exclusively through one agent. It's too high an amount to be a hobby-only collection, or even a sideline of a pro-tog earning a living with other photography, but as you say, also too low to be a decent wage after the % cut, so if it's to be a serious income source, spreading it would almost guaranteed optimise its earnings potential.

There is little incentive for alamy to 'please the active contributors', and no evidence whatsoever that they 'probably have the best images' either, sadly. A tiny number of contributors are active on this forum. By comparison, the large agencies have far greater numbers of images available on alamy. (Just as an example, WENN Rights, 5 million + images, and I'm sure Zuma etc. have higher numbers still). Even a contributor with a large individual collection of 70-100k images is peanuts against that. Many of the large accounts who are not agencies never venture on this forum and may or may not h

That was my conclusion, too, that they'd probably outsource it to a 3rd party provider. It could well be a bulk operation. I must admit that I'd have little faith in any of that developing into an actual advantage/revenue opportunity for the contributor, there'll be little left of the fees down the line. It's also worrying because control over that process would then be removed from alamy and with that control of timelines, quality of the process, etc. I would not want to risk p*ssing any clients of mine off. It's hard enough to earn a living in photography these days.

Yes, and that is a problem for people with direct image clients. I do not want an agency hassling people who have paid for images or image licenses directly with me. It would be a huge no-no. Together with the liability issues discussed here at length (for which we are awaiting Alamy's response), those two points would mean the risk of losing revenue elsewhere or being involved in legal disputes would outweigh the forever shrinking income from Alamy.

Ditto. I have a much smaller port, but feel equally trapped. A lot of work went into it. And with a lot of mine being 'people' images (up to last year, at least...due to covid it's all wildlife for almost all of 2020/21😁), and many London event news images, including lots of photo calls, festivals, protests etc, quite a chunk of mine is likely to be in the 'risky' category you describe. Ditto a lot of my travel imagery depends on people content. They're all marked as editorial only, but I feel exposed and vulnerable with insurers not wanting to cover the risks pushed onto photographers now in

Thanks for checking with them! To be honest, I wouldn't have expected them to cover that clause. Doesn't look good then.

Absolutely. I am not prepared to pay an additional fee to make Alamy more revenue, that way, it would simply turn into a money spinning exercise.

Thanks for the info re. Simply Business. I'm with Photoguard also, but was also looking to tag on PI with them and couldn't get an all-in quote. May go to SB then for it.

Happy to contact them, but I'm a small fish. Perhaps a letter signed by lots of contributors who are NUJ members would work? They did take an interest last time Alamy changed the commission model.

It would also be good to get a view from the NUJ (a lot of us are members), and others.

I know I should be outraged that this is possible (I probably am), but you've also just confirmed that I am clearly OCD. I look at the page with multiples of that garden plan, and all I see is a document that hasn't been scanned/cropped to be properly levelled and upright. And it drives me mad. Help!

I agree completely. Hope my smiley wasn't misunderstood, it was just an expression of my disgust with Alamy's disregard for their contributors. I expect a minimum of fair play in any business relationship I have. I feel these changes indicate that there is none. Alamy is now a business I cannot trust. They may not care about me, but how long until their clients feel the same?