Cryptoprocta

Great day; thanks for arranging it, Iain.

So sorry to catch up with this news, Betty. Glad that you can think of the beauties of nature in the midst of your sadness.

But of course Getty is selling it and isn't closed down: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/in-this-handout-photo-provided-by-the-national-science-news-photo/1136111087 (VCG haven't a clue about copyright in general. At one point they were giving away images (without the authors' permission) for free because they thought that would increase buying custom.)

Indeed. I'm sorry - I was afraid you were delusional!!!

Why?

You can opt out of NU, but my super low price sales were not in NU, but a bulk discount deal. Nothing at all to do with the actual photos sold. Inchiquin is right - for Alamy, it's a good lump sum.

I'm now - having thought about it - wondering how big an issue this is. I'm hoping Alamy noticed that very few buyers were ticking the 'unaltered' box when searching before they made it that we didn't have to tick 'digitally altered' on submissions, and decided these few buyers didn't matter (always a slippery slope - that has historically been a big problem with my micro, constantly making changes because "Only a tiny percentage of our customers were using that feature", but all these small percentages add up). I know that back in the day textbook publishers' main reason for not using micro (when there was a larger price differential than nowadays) was, as I stated above, that they couldn't know if images had been set up or altered. Whereas now at least one of them has strict rules about digital changes (dust bunnies and CA OK) and captioning. Is that now a disadvantage for Alamy? I have to say that now that we don't have to declare digitally altered, I often do a quick sweep taking out bird droppings, litter, minor vandalism, small parts of a person who walked into the edge of my photo etc. But there is now no way of indicating that a pic has been altered much more than that, photos combined, etc etc.

Can Canadian Alamy buyers not pay in Can$? I can only see UK£ prices when I look at files here, not US$.

That's really how I feel. Plus keep 100%. 🙂

That might work for a specialist agency, but they would thus lose less usual images, and hence perhaps the buyers who had use for these images. That could even apply to news agencies if they culled people who lived in a particular locality, not much required for news, but something could happen there.

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what happens with some UK magazines also. Bear in mind, large publishers no doubt have a bulk deal in place with Alamy as well as the other places.

Not very bothered about being removed, I never sold anything submitted as Live News (my local papers don't pay for pics) and anything less local would take me well over an hour before I could upload. But in the unlikely chance I catch some Live News, where should I send them now?

I don't think we can work out an optimal strategy. A commonplace file might sell for a reasonable or high amount on a micro (once a buyer paid $250 on a micro for my photo of a gift bow isolated on white - I got the bow in a pack of three for £1). Or a unique subject might sell for cents on Alamy, because it's all about the discount the buyer has negotiated, not the rarity or quality of the file. If you want highest rpd, sell via a specialist agency if you can supply according to their requirements (often a minimum number of new files/subjects per month or per quarter). If you want highest total income, the specialist agency might do that for you if you fit their requirements; or it might be micro. It's very unlikely to be Alamy. If percentage of sale $$ is paramount, micros definitely aren't it. Exclusive to Alamy may fit the bill.

I don't know the one you linked to, but at least two of the best known keywording tools work by analysing similar images across various sites, particularly SS, and trawling the keywords.

That has been the case for very many years (I used to be a teacher). Though back in the day they didn't tend to use micro images as the micros didn't sell specifically editorial pics, and the publishers couldn't be sure of the veracity of the photos* My Alamy pics are only sold at Alamy, but I have also noticed several books with pics from multiple agencies not including Alamy, for no obvious reason when I looked at Alamy pics on that subject, so by only selling on Alamy you could be losing some potential sales. *But now there is no way of indicating on Alamy that pics have not been digitally altered or 'set up', and I'm not sure that buyers can search only on 'previously Live News' images (but maybe that can be requesed if you ask Alamy search for you [?])