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artwork, context, and exclusivity


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3 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

It looks to me like Alamy is blurring two issues here.

 

When I mark images as "only available on Alamy" it means that I am not offering licences for this particular image via any other agency. That's straightforward.

 

But what Alamy seem to be trying to do is to interpret "only available on Alamy" as indicating that there's something "exclusive" about the content of the image, hence the clause about artwork and copyright... 

 

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”

 

This is causing some confusion. If Alamy are hoping to use "only available on Alamy" as a way of indicating to customer that an image contains exclusive content, they could run into problems. There are so  many almost identical pictures of many common views or items on Alamy from different contributors. Even if they are all marked as only available on Alamy there's no way no way exclusive content could claimed...

 

I think Alamy should keep it simple. "Only available on Alamy" should simply indicate the contributor is not offering licences for this image via any other agency.

 

Simples... Easier to understand and enforce.

 

Mark

 

Yes, I think the word "exclusive" is confusing a lot of people. We are saying an image is exclusively available on Alamy. Not that the client is getting some sort of exclusive rights.

 

Paulette

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9 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

It looks to me like Alamy is blurring two issues here.

 

When I mark images as "only available on Alamy" it means that I am not offering licences for this particular image via any other agency. That's straightforward.

 

But what Alamy seem to be trying to do is to interpret "only available on Alamy" as indicating that there's something "exclusive" about the content of the image, hence the clause about artwork and copyright... 

 

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”

 

This is causing some confusion. If Alamy are hoping to use "only available on Alamy" as a way of indicating to customer that an image contains exclusive content, they could run into problems. There are so  many almost identical pictures of many common views or items on Alamy from different contributors. Even if they are all marked as only available on Alamy there's no way no way exclusive content could claimed...

 

I think Alamy should keep it simple. "Only available on Alamy" should simply indicate the contributor is not offering licences for this image via any other agency.

 

Simples... Easier to understand and enforce.

 

Mark

 

This is exactly right. When we check the "Only available on Alamy" box, all we are really saying is that a particular image is not currently available at another agency, not that its content is exclusive to Alamy, which would be virtually impossible to ascertain. Consequently, there is no way checked images can be offered as having "exclusive" content. Hopefully Alamy realizes this. Personally, I think it was a mistake for Alamy to introduce the word "exclusive" in the first place.

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9 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

John and I have exchanged emails about this and are of the view that going beyond exclusivity of representation may be a rubrous fish of the Clupea family, usually smoked or pickled.

 

Rubrous indeed and potentially odoriferous for all concerned. B)

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I think that the wording of the "Only available on Alamy" check box should be reworded to something like the following:

 

"I certify that this image is not currently available at another stock photography agency"

 

This would remove the ambiguity about exclusive content. It's also all that we can honestly say.

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15 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

This is exactly right. When we check the "Only available on Alamy" box, all we are really saying is that a particular image is not currently available at another agency, not that its content is exclusive to Alamy, which would be virtually impossible to ascertain. Consequently, there is no way checked images can be offered as having "exclusive" content. Hopefully Alamy realizes this. Personally, I think it was a mistake for Alamy to introduce the word "exclusive" in the first place.

 

This I agree with, that the image I created is not with another agency. There is always a slim possibility another photographer standing next to me in a photographers scrum could have shot the same image and submitted to another agency.

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On 1/12/2019 at 09:06, M.Chapman said:

 

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”

 

This is causing some confusion. If Alamy are hoping to use "only available on Alamy" as a way of indicating to customer that an image contains exclusive content, they could run into problems. There are so  many almost identical pictures of many common views or items on Alamy from different contributors. Even if they are all marked as only available on Alamy there's no way no way exclusive content could claimed...

 

I think Alamy should keep it simple. "Only available on Alamy" should simply indicate the contributor is not offering licences for this image via any other agency.

 

Simples... Easier to understand and enforce.

 

Mark

I am confused as well with this famous 2.7. There it is talking about artworks that must not be marked as "Only available on Alamy", what about modern buildings, for example, occuping more than 1/3 of the image that are protected by copyrights? e.g.Ghery buildings are not artworks? I am agree with above that the contract wording should be cristal clear to avoid confusion.

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6 hours ago, Abiyoyo said:

I am confused as well with this famous 2.7. There it is talking about artworks that must not be marked as "Only available on Alamy", what about modern buildings, for example, occuping more than 1/3 of the image that are protected by copyrights? e.g.Ghery buildings are not artworks? I am agree with above that the contract wording should be cristal clear to avoid confusion.

 

For one thing, the phrase "Only available on Alamy" doesn't even make sense grammatically. Technically, this phrase is saying that an image has only one characteristic, availability on Alamy, which is obviously untrue. "Available on Alamy only" would be more accurate, but this still wouldn't fix all the ambiguities.

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19 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

Should folk art -- e.g. weavings, embroidery,  etc. with traditional designs used by indigenous peoples -- be considered "artwork" for the purposes of the new contract?

 

Any thoughts on this?

 

I unchecked my examples of those recently when they were the subject of the photo, not part of a large scene.  Indigenous communities tend to get touchy about us making money off their designs and many of these communities are now on the internet.   

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3 hours ago, MizBrown said:

 

I unchecked my examples of those recently when they were the subject of the photo, not part of a large scene.  Indigenous communities tend to get touchy about us making money off their designs and many of these communities are now on the internet.   

 

I don't blame them for getting upset. I can understand the argument for possibly marking such images as "for editorial use only" in order to prevent commercial use . However, I don't get what all this has to do with "Only available on Alamy" and "exclusivity". Obviously I'm missing something.

 

I remain as confused as ever... :blink:

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48 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

I don't blame them for getting upset. I can understand the argument for possibly marking such images as "for editorial use only" in order to prevent commercial use . However, I don't get what all this has to do with "Only available on Alamy" and "exclusivity". Obviously I'm missing something.

 

I remain as confused as ever... :blink:

When you figure it out, let me know. :)

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14 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

When you figure it out, let me know. :)

 

All I can think of is that a photo of an artwork can't really be exclusive because images of the same work might be found at other agencies. The problem is that this is the case for countless other subjects as well. For instance, there are all kinds of images of famous architectural landmarks -- e.g. the Empire State Building, CN Tower,  Taj Mahal, etc -- shot from the same perspective in similar lighting conditions that are available at different stock agencies. And then there are all those shots of well-known celebrities, politicians etc.  that have a habit of popping up all over the place .To top things off, we have the whole problem of determining exactly what subjects fit into the "artwork" category.  It's often all in the eye of the beholder, as they say.

 

Issues such as  possible copyright infringement and whether or not creators might be upset because we are getting wealthy at their expense are totally different as far as I can see. They really have nothing to do with exclusivity, whatever that might be.

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