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Commission Change announced in email


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I just want to add that I replied to the email and asked about Fine Art America if we sell prints and other products there but are opted out of their licensing for stock. Let me see if I can add links here to the contract and changes....

 

Here is contract...https://www.alamy.com/terms/Contributor-Contract-07012019.pdf?utm_campaign=1382258_Contract Change January 2019&utm_medium=email&utm_source=contributoremail&dm_i=2SWW,TMK2,12IMQ4,325MH,1 

 

And the list of changes...  https://www.alamy.com/terms/contributor-contract-changes.asp?utm_campaign=1382258_Contract Change January 2019&utm_medium=email&utm_source=contributoremail&dm_i=2SWW,TMK2,12IMQ4,325MH,1

 

I hope this works.

 

Paulette

 

 

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Off the top of my head on first looking through the new stuff

  • "Exclusive images" will still be supplied by Alamy to their "Distributors" and the contributor will continue to get 30%
  • The places allowed on "exclusive images" are contributors own website and print sales - however, no definition of print sales is given so still no idea whether POD sites are allowed or not
  • Absolutely nothing I can see about live news images and exclusiveness

In other words very little clarification and we still know about as much about what the new contract means on a practical side as we did yesterday - which suggests to me, ladies and gents, that the absolute only real change happening is the amount of money Alamy is taking off contributors - all other stuff is to fluff that out but shows no real thinking about the practical side of things like live news, POD sites, etc.

Oh and still no idea about the other changes that have been made - if someone knows where to find those I would love to know

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I'm pretty sure "print sales" probably means "sale of prints" . . .

DD

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2 minutes ago, dustydingo said:

I'm pretty sure "print sales" probably means "sale of prints" . . .

DD

From the official definition " not also available via any third party licensing, sales or (where the Image is not supplied by Alamy) distribution channel"

Now do you want to tell me if a POD is a third party sale or distribution or not - especially if a site is one offering both licencing and POD.

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It all looks pretty straightforward to me - if you have the same image with another agency then it is not exclusive, otherwise, it is.

 

I noticed a change in the rates for "affiliate sales" whatever they are.  Can we opt out - I prefer my fees to be divided between the photographer and the agency, not some other hanger-on.  Or perhaps I've misinterpreted something.

 

Chris

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18 minutes ago, CM photo said:

It all looks pretty straightforward to me - if you have the same image with another agency then it is not exclusive, otherwise, it is.

 

I noticed a change in the rates for "affiliate sales" whatever they are.  Can we opt out - I prefer my fees to be divided between the photographer and the agency, not some other hanger-on.  Or perhaps I've misinterpreted something.

 

Chris

In fact the affiliate commission has been cut for exclusives- we now get 43.5% instead of 38.5. The affiliate share has been cut from 20 to 10%.

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6 minutes ago, Paul Glendell said:

Just been through the link from the email, can anyone tell me if 'exclusive' to Alamy means that we can or cannot sell the images from our own web site ?

You can definitely sell from your own website - it does explicitly say that.

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25 minutes ago, Starsphinx said:

From the official definition " not also available via any third party licensing, sales or (where the Image is not supplied by Alamy) distribution channel"

Now do you want to tell me if a POD is a third party sale or distribution or not - especially if a site is one offering both licencing and POD.

 

Two points:

 

One: if a POD party also licenses an image (EDIT: or offers an image for license), then of course it can't then be exclusive to Alamy. Surely that's a no-brainer?

 

Two: then of course there's the " excluding the Contributor’s personal website and print sales " bit you seem to have missed quoting . . . instead of wildly speculating and casting aspersions left right and centre, I e-mailed Alamy to clarify the point, even though I'm pretty sure what it means. I truly think I'll get a better (and quicker) answer that way, although of course YEMD.

 

DD

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Just now, dustydingo said:

 

Two points:

 

One: if a POD party also licenses an image, of course it can't then be exclusive to Alamy. Surely that's a no-brainer?

 

Two: then of course there's the " excluding the Contributor’s personal website and print sales " bit you seem to have missed quoting . . . instead of wildly speculating and casting aspersions left right and centre, I e-mailed Alamy to clarify the point, even though I'm pretty sure what it means. I truly think I'll get a better (and quicker) answer that way, although of course YEMD.

 

DD

I am not wildly speculating - I am going on legal stuff being precise.  Now I can take an image to a print shot get it printed and sell that print - definitely allowed.  It is if I can put the image on a website who then prints it if it is bought.
You are not the first to email - several people have already emailed on this exact point and not had replies and the thought was that it would be clarified in the new terms - but it has not been hence my post.  The terms have not made anything much clearer than they were before - which might become an issue.

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I disagree.

 

I think it's much clearer now we have the actual contract wording in our possession.

 

And if there's a point or two that not everybody is clear on, we seek clarification. Easy peasy.

 

DD

 

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I suggest doing the following in order when needing advice:

1/ Make up your own mind; if you can't,

2/ Ask the forum; if you're unsure about that advice

3/ Carry out a risk assessment of the consequences of 1 or 2 being incorrect

4/ pay for professional advice.

As one might expect, I think the contract is very clear, so I stopped at (1). I've been as far as (4) once, on legal aid, although it was then (3) as there was no internet.

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46 minutes ago, CM photo said:

It all looks pretty straightforward to me - if you have the same image with another agency then it is not exclusive, otherwise, it is.

 

I noticed a change in the rates for "affiliate sales" whatever they are.  Can we opt out - I prefer my fees to be divided between the photographer and the agency, not some other hanger-on.  Or perhaps I've misinterpreted something.

 

Chris

No opt out for this. There's a link at the bottom of most pages explaining this, and saying;

 

"Some of our top affiliates earn more than $4,500 a month"

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1 hour ago, Starsphinx said:

In other words very little clarification and we still know about as much about what the new contract means on a practical side as we did yesterday - which suggests to me, ladies and gents, that the absolute only real change happening is the amount of money Alamy is taking off contributors - all other stuff is to fluff that out but shows no real thinking about the practical side of things like live news, POD sites, etc.

Oh and still no idea about the other changes that have been made - if someone knows where to find those I would love to know

 

Ladies and gents, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

All of my questions about exclusive have been answered in the new contract. It is very clear to me.

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9 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

 

When you run your own business, and you need the answer to a question, you do these things in order:

1/ Make up your own mind; if you can't,

2/ Ask the forum; if you're unsure about that advice

3/ Carry out a risk assessment of the consequences of 1 or 2 being incorrect

4/ pay for professional advice.

As one might expect, I think the contract is very clear, so I stopped at (1).

 Most of it seems clear to me, accept clause 2.7. I think I know what they're getting at but it could have been worded better IMHO. i.e. All images containing works of art that are subject to copyright cannot be deemed as exclusive to Alamy. That means that one cannot simply select all images as exclusive and therefor becomes a headache and demands more work to appraise all images in my portfolio.

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19 minutes ago, Sultanpepa said:

 Most of it seems clear to me, accept clause 2.7. I think I know what they're getting at but it could have been worded better IMHO. i.e. All images containing works of art that are subject to copyright cannot be deemed as exclusive to Alamy. That means that one cannot simply select all images as exclusive and therefor becomes a headache and demands more work to appraise all images in my portfolio.

It doesn't say "containing", it says "of".

I interpret that in the usual way- if the artwork is incidental, it doesn't apply.

It doesn't say "that are subject to copyright" either, it says "that are NOT protected by copyright". It's to exclude out of copyright images such as Bill was asking about. They can't be exclusive.

 

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22 minutes ago, Sultanpepa said:

 Most of it seems clear to me, accept clause 2.7. I think I know what they're getting at but it could have been worded better IMHO. i.e. All images containing works of art that are subject to copyright cannot be deemed as exclusive to Alamy. That means that one cannot simply select all images as exclusive and therefor becomes a headache and demands more work to appraise all images in my portfolio.

 

I too am confused about this. Does it mean that an image that contains a street mural or some other form of public art --even it has "context" -- cannot be deemed exclusive to Alamy? How about a shot of a painting or mural that is in the public domain -- can it be marked exclusive?

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1 hour ago, spacecadet said:

In fact the affiliate commission has been cut for exclusives- we now get 43.5% instead of 38.5. The affiliate share has been cut from 20 to 10%.

 

Glad to hear it!

 

34 minutes ago, KevinS said:

No opt out for this. There's a link at the bottom of most pages explaining this, and saying;

 

"Some of our top affiliates earn more than $4,500 a month"

 

Thanks for pointing this out; I probably should read more of the small print. 

Chris

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1 hour ago, dustydingo said:

 

Two points:

 

One: if a POD party also licenses an image (EDIT: or offers an image for license), then of course it can't then be exclusive to Alamy. Surely that's a no-brainer?

 

Two: then of course there's the " excluding the Contributor’s personal website and print sales " bit you seem to have missed quoting . . . instead of wildly speculating and casting aspersions left right and centre, I e-mailed Alamy to clarify the point, even though I'm pretty sure what it means. I truly think I'll get a better (and quicker) answer that way, although of course YEMD.

 

DD

 

There are definitely some grey areas in the definition of Exclusive and the use therein of the terms print sales, image site and even personal website. Surely it is not ideal that everybody who is not clear emails Alamy for clarification - it would be far better if they had provided a tighter definition in the first place.

 

Grey areas for me:

 

1. I would interpret the term image site to include PoD sites whether they offer a licensing option or not. What else could it mean?  

 

2, The term personal website could if taken literally (which I guess what is intended with legal writing) preclude a photographer's business website. I doubt that this is intended and I assume it would be ok to sell prints directly from one's own website (personal or business) but I am not sure why they used the word personal here. 

 

3. If one was also licensing images directly from one's own website (personal or business), then this would seem to be ok the way the contract is written as this is not third party licensing but it is not entirely clear to me.

 

One thing for sure though that I haven't seen mentioned in any of the posts since the original announcement: if one is posting images on Facebook or Instagram, then these images could not be exclusive to Alamy as uploading to either gives them the right to sub-license and so on

 

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27 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

It doesn't say "containing", it says "of".

I interpret that in the usual way- if the artwork is incidental, it doesn't apply.

It doesn't say "that are subject to copyright" either, it says "that are NOT protected by copyright". It's to exclude out of copyright images such as Bill was asking about. They can't be exclusive.

 

 

I think our posts crossed in cyberspace. So a straight on shot -- i.e. with no context -- of an artwork could not be marked as exclusive? Otherwise, if there is some kind of surrounding context, it would be OK to deem the image exclusive?

 

This is the clause I'm referring to:

 

"The Contributor acknowledges and accepts that Images of artworks, or that are not protected by copyright, or that are in the public domain or for which copyright ownership is unknown must never be marked as “Only available on Alamy”

 

P.S. I agree that this statement needs rewording and further clarification.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Paul Glendell said:

Just been through the link from the email, can anyone tell me if 'exclusive' to Alamy means that we can or cannot sell the images from our own web site ?

 

Your question could be considered ambiguous. When you say sell do you mean license or print sales. The way I read the definition of Exclusive then it covers both so it is ok but I would like to see this clarified by Alamy.

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13 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

I think our posts crossed in cyberspace. So a straight on shot -- i.e. with no context -- of an artwork could not be marked as exclusive? Otherwise, if there is some kind of surrounding context, it would be OK to deem the image exclusive?

 

This is the clause I'm referring to:

 

"The Contributor acknowledges and accepts that Images of artworks, or that are not protected by copyright, or that are in the public domain or for which copyright ownership is unknown must never be marked as “Only available on Alamy”

 

 

 

That's my opinion.

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