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It's official- 50% for exclusive - (JW response video to commission change)


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The commission share problem has been resolved,

so we need to resolve another recurring problem. Just tell, Alamy needs to start seriously fix their credit control system.

Clear the long wait balance by paying our previous sales. Months, even to year is not acceptable and not worth for the sales we get.

 

The bigger amounts of Alamy uncleared balance is not just as good as pennies in microstock.

I hope Alamy will not abandon our trust that we build until now.

Thanks

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Indeed... I have far more time spend waiting on money than getting money. Right now, I am 19 cents low of getting paid, but am 7 dollar over the pay out amount, yet it has not been cleared. And that takes till a buyer  paying, which can easily take another two months. We truly get the short end of the stick in everything. I bet all those unpaid pennies or thousands of dollars bring in good intrest for Alamy... 

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35 minutes ago, photocatseyes said:

 I bet all those unpaid pennies or thousands of dollars bring in good intrest for Alamy... 

Er, you haven't been paid because Alamy hasn't been paid. How can Alamy earn interest on money it hasn't been paid?

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If the customer pays in the beginning of the month and the pay out date is the next month as they only have one pay out date in the month. That whole month is intrest for Alamy. Might not be much if the amount is 50 dollar, but if you take all those small payments in the big pool, it amounts to a big sum. If the customer paid but you are not at $50, for beginning and low selling photographers, it can take months before the cleared funds do get paid... 

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11 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Er, you haven't been paid because Alamy hasn't been paid. How can Alamy earn interest on money it hasn't been paid?

Er, not quite. Alamy have as the OP says $49.81 (i.e. 19 cents short of the threshold) this amount has been cleared and could have been cleared for a long time.

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14 minutes ago, photocatseyes said:

If the customer pays in the beginning of the month and the pay out date is the next month as they only have one pay out date in the month. That whole month is intrest for Alamy. Might not be much if the amount is 50 dollar, but if you take all those small payments in the big pool, it amounts to a big sum. If the customer paid but you are not at $50, for beginning and low selling photographers, it can take months before the cleared funds do get paid... 

 

6 minutes ago, Russell said:

Er, not quite. Alamy have as the OP says $49.81 (i.e. 19 cents short of the threshold) this amount has been cleared and could have been cleared for a long time.

 

so, moving beyond complaining, what are you suggesting? Lowering the threshold for payment to . . . what? No matter where you set it, someone is going to be stuck just short sometimes, necessitating a sometimes very long wait until they have another image licensed . . . unless you are advocating no threshold? Or perhaps everyone being paid immediately an image has been licensed?

 

On the highly frustrating subject of waiting for payment to be cleared, it's been mentioned here in the past, to save we contributors from much gnashing of teeth or facsimile, Alamy could simply revert to the practise of some very, very big agencies and only report a sale after they (Alamy) have received payment (aka the payment has been cleared). Doesn't address the payment threshold, but certainly removes our frustration of having a sale reported but waiting sometimes ages for it to be cleared. Of course, the nett effect is exactly the same as far as just when that sale is "cleared" for payment, but we'll be less stressed in our ignorance . . . or so that particular theory goes. Not sure I agree, but there you go . . .

DD

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31 minutes ago, Russell said:

Er, not quite. Alamy have as the OP says $49.81 (i.e. 19 cents short of the threshold) this amount has been cleared and could have been cleared for a long time.

Fair enough. But OP agreed to the $50 threshold as part of the contract. Interest rates on deposits are pretty derisory. Under-threshold payments are still a liability and interest receivable in the most recent accounts is under £80000.

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1 hour ago, dustydingo said:

 

 

so, moving beyond complaining, what are you suggesting? Lowering the threshold for payment to . . . what? No matter where you set it, someone is going to be stuck just short sometimes, necessitating a sometimes very long wait until they have another image licensed . . . unless you are advocating no threshold? Or perhaps everyone being paid immediately an image has been licensed?

 

On the highly frustrating subject of waiting for payment to be cleared, it's been mentioned here in the past, to save we contributors from much gnashing of teeth or facsimile, Alamy could simply revert to the practise of some very, very big agencies and only report a sale after they (Alamy) have received payment (aka the payment has been cleared). Doesn't address the payment threshold, but certainly removes our frustration of having a sale reported but waiting sometimes ages for it to be cleared. Of course, the nett effect is exactly the same as far as just when that sale is "cleared" for payment, but we'll be less stressed in our ignorance . . . or so that particular theory goes. Not sure I agree, but there you go . . .

DD

I'd rather know as soon as a sale is made. That way I can do a reverse image search straight away to find out any infringements. I've found them a couple of times - people copying images from newspaper articles to their blogs or using them on Facebook.

If somebody is only earning $50 every 2 or 3 months, then I really don't think that a contributor just missing the $50 threshold should be on the list of priority items that Alamy needs to address. The answer is for the contributor to submit more quality images and make more regular sales!

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Just as a matter of interest how many other businesses do people know of that willingly and without protest allow themselves to go unpaid for products services for the lengths of time Alamy does?  In the UK there is specific legislation against prolonged late payment, allowing the claimant to not only get their fee but also claim interest and costs - why would Alamy not make use of this to ensure that all customers pay up promptly - Alamy gets paid contributor gets paid.

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1 hour ago, Starsphinx said:

Just as a matter of interest how many other businesses do people know of that willingly and without protest allow themselves to go unpaid for products services for the lengths of time Alamy does?  In the UK there is specific legislation against prolonged late payment, allowing the claimant to not only get their fee but also claim interest and costs - why would Alamy not make use of this to ensure that all customers pay up promptly - Alamy gets paid contributor gets paid.

I'm sure that they do chase up customers. But they aren't going to spend tens or hundreds or thousands of dollars on admin costs/ legal fees etc. to accelerate the payment of a fee that's tens of $ or less.

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14 minutes ago, Keith Douglas said:

I'm sure that they do chase up customers. But they aren't going to spend tens or hundreds or thousands of dollars on admin costs/ legal fees etc. to accelerate the payment of a fee that's tens of $ or less.

But that is my point - they are UK based and the UK has legislation that gives them the power to chase late payers get their money plus interest plus costs - so chasing late payers will not cost Alamy.

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2 hours ago, Starsphinx said:

Just as a matter of interest how many other businesses do people know of that willingly and without protest allow themselves to go unpaid for products services for the lengths of time Alamy does?  In the UK there is specific legislation against prolonged late payment, allowing the claimant to not only get their fee but also claim interest and costs - why would Alamy not make use of this to ensure that all customers pay up promptly - Alamy gets paid contributor gets paid.

Presumably because, whether we like it or not, they don't want to chase away customers to the micros.

Nevertheless, it's wrong not to charge the higher rate which should have been paid originally, or there is NO incentive for honest reporting.

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10 hours ago, Starsphinx said:

But that is my point - they are UK based and the UK has legislation that gives them the power to chase late payers get their money plus interest plus costs - so chasing late payers will not cost Alamy.

 

In my experience the slowest payments tend to come from the overseas distributors where the rules may not be the same. Chasing payment always costs in time and admin.

 

Yes it's a pain, but the fees in general per image sold are higher than elsewhere.

 

Mark

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

In my case I have photographs published in January on The Guardian, sold by Alamy for 5 USD, but appeared in Alamy's reports only in February, so they took me away 60% instead of 50%.

 

According to Alamy, "Commission is calculated at the point of invoice rather than the usage date so in this instance the commission is correct."

 

When we signed up, we agreed for a 50-50 rate. Then they changed it at their will, with the excuse that sales will grow. In my case, sales are lower than before.

 

But is it legal to apply me the new commission as of February, for a photo that has been published in January (it was a direct sale), so has been sold before the commission change?

 

I know I'm speaking about a few cents, but it is a matter of principle.

 

Thank you

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9 hours ago, Dino G said:

In my case I have photographs published in January on The Guardian, sold by Alamy for 5 USD, but appeared in Alamy's reports only in February, so they took me away 60% instead of 50%. 

 

According to Alamy, "Commission is calculated at the point of invoice rather than the usage date so in this instance the commission is correct."

 

When we signed up, we agreed for a 50-50 rate. Then they changed it at their will, with the excuse that sales will grow. In my case, sales are lower than before.

 

But is it legal to apply me the new commission as of February, for a photo that has been published in January (it was a direct sale), so has been sold before the commission change?

 

I know I'm speaking about a few cents, but it is a matter of principle.

 

Thank you

 

I'm also one who likes to stick to principles.  Unfortunately, in this case, I believe that Alamy are acting correctly according to the new contract and the way they bill/invoice various customers and the way they notify us of sales.

 

I'm also waiting for a known (magazine) use (pre-commission change) to be invoiced.  There may well be others.  I'm also non-exclusive.  I think that we'll be seeing more flak from this commission change for some time to come - and not just owing to this specific issue.  You thought Brexit was bad!

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I've been with Alamy since 2008. I forgot that when they went from 60% to 50% they promised us they wouldn't drop our commissions again. . We should be grandfathered in. But in reality, that's not going to happen.

 

After giving it some real thought, I have to say Alamy's concession  that if we tick off our images as "exclusive," then we can get the commission that they agreed to pay us in the first instance, isn't really a concession at all. It's a way to stop us all from running off and putting our images elsewhere, where those images will compete with Alamy. 

 

I will probably end up ticking some RM images as exclusive (I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face), but after doing a realistic analysis, this royalty cut means that if I'm going to upload a  thousand new images, this year, which was my plan,  they need to go to an agency where the returns justify the efforts, and if that doesn't happen, then I need to upload them to more than just Alamy if I'm going to get the reward I'd expect for the effort I've made in taking and processing them. I just uploaded about 35 images earlier today, so I'm not giving up here, but I also uploaded them elsewhere. 

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2 hours ago, Marianne said:

 

 

After giving it some real thought, I have to say Alamy's concession  that if we tick off our images as "exclusive," then we can get the commission that they agreed to pay us in the first instance, isn't really a concession at all. It's a way to stop us all from running off and putting our images elsewhere, where those images will compete with Alamy.  

1

It has at least partially backfired on them.  The change resulted in me submitting to a huge microstock, then yesterday I had my first submission accepted by the people who do the editing software.  I would never have approached either place if the commission had not changed.  I am probably not the only one.  It could work out better for me because right now it certainly seems other places will bring more money in total but probably not what Alamy intended.

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9 hours ago, Starsphinx said:

It has at least partially backfired on them.  The change resulted in me submitting to a huge microstock, then yesterday I had my first submission accepted by the people who do the editing software.  I would never have approached either place if the commission had not changed.  I am probably not the only one.  It could work out better for me because right now it certainly seems other places will bring more money in total but probably not what Alamy intended.

 

Agreed, and you're definitely not the only one.

 

Mark

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