Commission change - James West comments

[MilesbeforeIsleep]

4 hours ago, Julie Edwards said:

The BPPA (British Press Photographers Association) have now responded with an open letter.... A measured and well thought out response 

 

 

https://thebppa.com/an-open-letter-to-alamy-ceo-james-west/

 

 

Thanks for this, Julie.  Do we have anyone with membership in NPPA, the U.S. version of BPPA?   Perhaps they're not yet aware of the situation and would like to comment.  https://www.nppa.org/

[Homy]

6 hours ago, Ericg said:

It’s the appearance of greed that gets to me. Why not be satisfied with $25 million a year in revenue? Why must you demand constant growth from your company? If the only way to increase your revenue is to squeeze us individual photographers, maybe its time to stand back and look at becoming more efficient rather than putting the burden of your growth on us.

 

If the price for a higher annual revenue comes at the sacrifice of your partners (us photographers), maybe Alamy has reached its growth limit.

 

Never ending growth is unsustainable for any system.

 

Please consider the big picture (no pun intended!).

 

Eric

 

I totally agree. That's what is wrong with many companies. They just chase profits and lay off people despite of good profits just to maintain high growth for no good.

[losdemas]

Sometimes, you just have to laugh:

 

https://twitter.com/callisterphoto/status/1071120618676879360

 

...sort of...

[Foreign Export]

6 minutes ago, losdemas said:

Sometimes, you just have to laugh:

 

https://twitter.com/callisterphoto/status/1071120618676879360

 

...sort of...

 

 

Says it all about their attitude

Entirely focused on promoting new contributors 

[Zollikon]

It's sad, I only recently got back into photography (Camera Press, back in the day) and signed up with Alamy because their 50/50 split seemed like a fair deal.

 

If Alamy want to grow, great. Many businesses want to grow, and they fund it by reinvesting profit, issuing shares or getting a loan - because they are confident of their business plan. Trying to fund your growth by squeezing your suppliers is a sketchy way to try and grow - especially when there are other routes to market for those suppliers.

 

I think the real kicker is the huge size of the cut. It's not a 5% or a 10% cut, it's a 20% cut. TWENTY PERCENT! That is massive. And, with regret, it's enough to make me look into some of those other routes to market.

 

I'm genuinely sad, but I guess that's business. I'm not going to tell Alamy how to run their business, but I sure know I have to look after mine.

 

 

 

[njene]

Thank you BPPA for taking the time to express your thoughts in words

[Bill Kuta]

Looks like I'll be shifting focus back to the POD site.

[Betty LaRue]

57 minutes ago, Bill Kuta said:

Looks like I'll be shifting focus back to the POD site.

Me, too. 

[Hodderauthor]

The National Union of Journalists has now commented on this:

 

https://www.nuj.org.uk/news/nuj-urges-alamy-to-rethink-commission-cut/

[DDoug]

5 hours ago, Bill Kuta said:

Looks like I'll be shifting focus back to the POD site.

One thing Alamy could do, possibly, is make all contributors who so choose to be defacto members of Art.com. So instead of selling PU only, we could be commissioned on the full price of enlarged print with framing. My information on this is a couple years old, but at that time anything over 10"x13" was just turned over to Art.com, the customer first having bought a cheap download from Alamy.

[Thomas Kyhn]

6 hours ago, Bill Kuta said:

Looks like I'll be shifting focus back to the POD site.

 

Perhaps you can put a link on your Alamy portfolio page.

[David McGill]

13 hours ago, Walrus said:

 

I recently uploaded images to Adobe Stock. One, they were clueless about copyright, so rejected a number of images after they were keyworded saying I had infringed intellectual property (being a photographer, I had done NO such thing -- they don't even know about the freedom of panorama clause, let alone more obscure clauses).

$ 5.05

I too have had the same trouble. I uploaded some images of cattle in a field near my home and ran into the intellectual property infringement scenario. Why? The animals' ID tags were visible. So a simple bit of cloning and a re-upload and all was well. However, in some instances their attitude to intellectual property is questionable. In that case with the cattle I didn't see any problem. As I mentioned before in a reply to another contributor I uploaded some airliner photos and had the same situation. Virtually all the airline colour schemes have to be cloned out and as a result nearly every airliner in their collection is all white!

David

 

[Richard49]

I've cancelled my membership of Alamy over this.

[Skyscraperfan]

What I noticed today: Alamy raised the price for the "Marketing package: Large Business" from €179.99 to €299.99 since I last checked two days ago. That's a step in the right direction. However, if Alamy sells a photo for 300 Euros, is it too much to ask that the photographer receives half of that money?

[marc]

This is part of Alamy's stated mission statement.

 

"We share the rewards with our suppliers with fairness and transparency, and our business is underpinned with a philanthropic ethos."

 

No. You don't share rewards with fairness when you reduce the payment to contributors by 20% but increase the pay of your staff, executives and employees  Please remove this statement from your website.  

 

And while giving money to charity is a  laudable idea,  doing so at the same time as cutting the earnings of hard-pressed photographers, many of whom rely on income from the library is hypocritical.  If you want an ethical mission, perhaps you should actually execute one or stop pretending. 

 

 

 

 

[KevinS]

7 hours ago, Hodderauthor said:

The National Union of Journalists has now commented on this:

 

https://www.nuj.org.uk/news/nuj-urges-alamy-to-rethink-commission-cut/

Very brief article, but succinct. One thing that stood out was the mention that James is blaming the current economic conditions. Here in the US the economy has been good, especially the last three years. Alamy has done well during that same time period. Giving the profits away might be a bigger factor in Alamy's troubles.

[Skyscraperfan]

I don't see what Brexit has to do with this. Why should anybody NOT buy a photo because of Brexit? Will any newspaper less be sold because of Brexit? Are companies suddenly poor because of Brexit? In fact a decreasing value of the British Pound would even mean that we get more pence for every dollar that comes from an overseas sale.

[aphperspective]

7 hours ago, David McGill said:

I too have had the same trouble. I uploaded some images of cattle in a field near my home and ran into the intellectual property infringement scenario. Why? The animals' ID tags were visible. So a simple bit of cloning and a re-upload and all was well. However, in some instances their attitude to intellectual property is questionable. In that case with the cattle I didn't see any problem. As I mentioned before in a reply to another contributor I uploaded some airliner photos and had the same situation. Virtually all the airline colour schemes have to be cloned out and as a result nearly every airliner in their collection is all white!

David

 

Same issue with JCB on the side of a forklift. BTW had the same with cattle ear tags on G. Plus the logo on a ball that was floating in the water. 

[KevinS]

29 minutes ago, JeffGreenberg said:

Staying ON TOPIC helps prevent that, IMO...

Yes; don't need anecdotes about other platforms unless it relates to commission split.

[Cryptoprocta]

22 hours ago, losdemas said:

Sometimes, you just have to laugh:

 

https://twitter.com/callisterphoto/status/1071120618676879360

 

...sort of...

That's a supreme example of rubbing our noses in  it.

[Cryptoprocta]

7 hours ago, JeffGreenberg said:

Regardless of what happens, I applaud the fact that these anti-40/60 threads

have been allowed to continue, especially if they are NOT locked tomorrow

or next week...

Yeah, they'll just let us rant, but nothing will happen.

They're having a good laugh, though.

[Cryptoprocta]

23 hours ago, Zollikon said:

If Alamy want to grow, great. Many businesses want to grow, and they fund it by reinvesting profit, issuing shares or getting a loan - because they are confident of their business plan.

Yeah, but shareholders want returns, loans have to be repaid, and they want all the profit to support their "charity".

Contributors not only don't  need to be paid back (with interest!), but after they have been screwed, they don't even have to be returned to their previous level (vide "paying for the US office").

[andremichel]

6 hours ago, Cryptoprocta said:

Yeah, but shareholders want returns, loans have to be repaid, and they want all the profit to support their "charity".

Contributors not only don't  need to be paid back (with interest!), but after they have been screwed, they don't even have to be returned to their previous level (vide "paying for the US office").

If they were being sincere the last time round, once the US office was up and running and self sustaining itself, they would have returned our share to 60%. 

Instead they have come back for more, this time with vague promises of growth and no clear business plan on how that might be achieved with our money. They really think very little of us. It shows a total disregard for their contributors and is all about power. 

[Jansos]

I've only been contributing for a few years but must admit that I am very disappointed in this draconian measure. A 20% cut is massive and will impact hugely (perhaps the logic was that it is better to do it all at once rather than 10% now and a further 10% in two years time? Get the pain over with in one go?).  However, I don't think it can reasonably be justified as purely a consequence of market/Brexit uncertainties.  It is a shame that it has been dressed-up as such! If it is, in part, due to market uncertainty over Brexit it should be explained that it is time limited and can be reversed if worse case scenarios do not materialise. The depressing logic behind the cut is that there will be further reductions in the future, if the economic situation demands. A very bleak prospect of a continuing downward spiral, and one that does nothing to maintain contributor loyalty to Alamy. If Alamy loses its contributor base then it shoots itself in the foot and further 'economies' are then more likely.

[Duncan_Andison]

30 minutes ago, Jansos said:

I've only been contributing for a few years but must admit that I am very disappointed in this draconian measure. A 20% cut is massive and will impact hugely (perhaps the logic was that it is better to do it all at once rather than 10% now and a further 10% in two years time? Get the pain over with in one go?).  However, I don't think it can reasonably be justified as purely a consequence of market/Brexit uncertainties.  It is a shame that it has been dressed-up as such! If it is, in part, due to market uncertainty over Brexit it should be explained that it is time limited and can be reversed if worse case scenarios do not materialise. The depressing logic behind the cut is that there will be further reductions in the future, if the economic situation demands. A very bleak prospect of a continuing downward spiral, and one that does nothing to maintain contributor loyalty to Alamy. If Alamy loses its contributor base then it shoots itself in the foot and further 'economies' are then more likely.

 

I agree. If Alamy go ahead with this cut then it's obvious Alamy views our commission as their Rainy Day money. Nice easy money for them. And saying it shouldn't happen again means nothing given they said that the last time. The trust has gone and I'm not sure they can recover it.

 

The prospect of further reductions from an untrustworthy agency, lower licence fees with low sales volume certainly means I will be looking to place work elsewhere now. T