Is Alamy turning into a Microstock agency?

[dustydingo]

2 hours ago, Starsphinx said:

I think the problem with the analogy to peanuts is that when an image on microstock is sold lots of times those peanuts add up to more than the steak dinner a single sale elsewhere brings.  Maybe it would help if people considered it a different way - one man wants one car for his own personal use - he pays one large price.  A group of neighbours want one car to be shared among them each using it for part of the time - each pays a much smaller amount.  Has the second car been sold for peanuts?  No.

So one customer wants one photo (or photos from one shoot) for their exclusive use they pay one lump sum 
If another customer wants use of one photo or shot from a shoot but is happy to share that with lots of others they pay one small amount

The validity of the pricing model and return model is if I can look at a photo or a shoot and say it has brung in x amount of money.  If I do a shoot that I would quote £150 for to a single customer, put the images on microstock, and find that I have sold 300 copies from the shoot at 50p each then I have not worked for peanuts - I have worked my usual rate.  Of course, the difference is that with the single customer once that £150 is paid that is it - on microstock I could see another 300 sales in the following decade and bring in another £150.

Maybe instead of thinking of microstock as peanuts, a better analogy would be a timeshare apartment.  Lots of people who cannot afford a whole holiday home buy one week a year through timeshare.  Now sometimes this works and sometimes this does not but I do not hear anyone saying the original owners of the properties being sold this way are selling them for peanuts.

 

This is an argument for all non-exclusive images on Alamy (i.e. images the buyer has to, as you put it, "share with lots of others" by way of them being non-exclusive to Alamy) to be sold for peanuts because they may sell more than once.

 

As usual I have to preface my comments with "I may be missing something here", but to me that looks like an argument _against_ all those railing against the low prices sometimes earned here, or at least a justification for those low prices? No?

 

DD

[dustydingo]

10 minutes ago, Olivier Parent said:

 

Well, no… 😁

 

Phew, that's a relief 😉

 

DD

[John Mitchell]

7 hours ago, Niels Quist said:

 

What people often forget is that images on microstock are more quickly watered down and will more often be copied and used for free and infringements are nearly impossible to trace.

 

That's not not surprising. When people pay so little for images, I'm sure they don't place much value on them and figure they can do whatever they want with them and no one will care. I guess you could say that it's human nature (or nurture) to behave this way.

[Cryptoprocta]

13 hours ago, Niels Quist said:

 

What people often forget is that images on microstock are more quickly watered down and will more often be copied and used for free and infringements are nearly impossible to trace.

You'd think, but OTOH:

1. Photos sold via Alamy published in certain UK publications are duplicated dozens, scores or even over a hundred times on the web before the sale is even reported, via far east Asian websites and from there can be stolen willy-nilly.

2. Alamy allow "trusted" buyers to get unwatermarked files on an 'honour' system, and when they are caught cheating, they are rewarded by getting the sales at a cheaper price, not punished. There must be hundreds, maybe thousands of unreported files which don't get reported.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Cryptoprocta

[CRS]

my one and only sale here has been as personal use ( a street scene of people buying items from a stall on a street corner...personal use?) and I got only $5 nett perhaps because I sell as RF only...not sure but that's not much better price than selling on a MS site IMO!

[Colblimp]

On 13/02/2019 at 21:40, M.Chapman said:

 

But there are also "on demand" and "other" sales which attract $1.88 (or more) each.

 

Mark

Mind blowing!!! 😂🤣😂

[Colblimp]

19 hours ago, Olivier Parent said:

 

You cannot compare a house to an image because 1.000 persons cannot have a whole use of a house at the same time

Well you say that...  😂

[george]

1 hour ago, CRS said:

my one and only sale here has been as personal use ( a street scene of people buying items from a stall on a street corner...personal use?) and I got only $5 nett perhaps because I sell as RF only...not sure but that's not much better price than selling on a MS site IMO!

I know it does not take much to confuse me, but this I am confused by. 
How can the image have been RF if it was a street scene with people unless the model releases were obtained for all people and releases for any property?  If not, if would surely have to be marked RF/Editorial, in which case how can it be sold as PU, surely PU is not editorial? 

[Starsphinx]

2 hours ago, CRS said:

my one and only sale here has been as personal use ( a street scene of people buying items from a stall on a street corner...personal use?) and I got only $5 nett perhaps because I sell as RF only...not sure but that's not much better price than selling on a MS site IMO!

Well, its more than I have made here - 2 sales both 99cs net.  I have more images selling from a smaller port on one of the microstocks and they are getting $2 net.  That did motivate me to start submitting to said microstock again.  I really do not care what sort of stock each company is going to describe itself as I am more interested in what money it is going to make and as long as microstock sales are double the price of here I am keeping my stuff spread out.

[Cryptoprocta]

2 hours ago, george said:

I know it does not take much to confuse me, but this I am confused by. 
How can the image have been RF if it was a street scene with people unless the model releases were obtained for all people and releases for any property?  If not, if would surely have to be marked RF/Editorial, in which case how can it be sold as PU, surely PU is not editorial? 

Seems not to be an issue.

I'd have thought most personal use sales would be of the more 'pictorial' variety, but in my case not remotely so: most of my PU sales have been RM without releases, and not the sort of  images you'd expect to see made into notecards etc.

[Cryptoprocta]

3 hours ago, Olivier Parent said:

 

To say the least! 

Can you imagine that? $1.88 (or more) for a single image?

People really throw money out the windows… 😂

I've had three sales from Alamy netting me under $1, and not PU. Apparently big discount buyers via a distributor.

[Cryptoprocta]

4 hours ago, Olivier Parent said:

To get back to the original question about Alamy turning into a MS, my last sale on Alamy yesterday = $175. The 50% commission leaves me with $87.50. I am not saying this is an answer of course but that is in the range I was expecting when I started submitting images to Alamy back in 2007.

My sales this month have been:

Magazine/editorial website use: $6.30 net

PU: $6.30 net

Presentation: £3.15 net

Australian newspaper: £5.01 net

[Cryptoprocta]

19 minutes ago, Olivier Parent said:

 

I don't know what to say… If I were a buyer looking for a picture of "Carduelis spinus on a feeder" for example, would I pay more for one of your pictures on Alamy than the cost of 1 credit for one of your similar pictures on Eyeshock?

 

Actually, none of the files were wildlife, which for me doesn't sell well here; they were all standard Alamy-type editorials.

OTOH, my highest value sale last year was from G (via iS) of a standard photo of a common European bird.

 

You can never tell, one of my files in that four was surprising to me. It wasn't zoomed, so I don't know what it was searched on, but on what I suspect were the most likely two searches, I wouldn't have picked that photo, I think I myself have better for these searches, not to mention the hundreds in one case, thousands in the other from other people. It's hard to predict what will fill a buyer's needs.

 

It would depend if you only needed one photo or many. If you were making the decision for only one photo, it would cost more on many of the micros than it would here. If buying in bulk, it would depend on the collection as a whole which site/s any buyer would go for, plus having a lengthy period to pay might favour Alamy as opposed to the micros where buyers pay upfront.

 

My larger-value sales here have mostly (not all) been to the US or worldwide (probably US), and that almost all US content. So that certainly punches well above its weight in my portfolio.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Cryptoprocta

[Matt Ashmore]

14 minutes ago, Olivier Parent said:

 

You think buyers do not compare? That would be a bit silly…

 

That is the crucial question... do they compare or don't they? And I suspect you'll find that people are pretty much 50-50 split on their opinions as to the answer.

Yes, some people will compare. Other people/companies will have deals/subscriptions/loyalties with one agency or another. For some people, it just won't even occur to shop around. And other people will just be lazy (or have tight deadlines) and just buy the picture once they have found it.

 

Depending on what individuals think the answer to this question is probably dictates whether they put the same images on both Alamy and microstock or not.

[Brasilnut]

13 minutes ago, Matt Ashmore said:

 

That is the crucial question... do they compare or don't they? And I suspect you'll find that people are pretty much 50-50 split on their opinions as to the answer.

Yes, some people will compare. Other people/companies will have deals/subscriptions/loyalties with one agency or another. For some people, it just won't even occur to shop around. And other people will just be lazy (or have tight deadlines) and just buy the picture once they have found it.

 

Depending on what individuals think the answer to this question is probably dictates whether they put the same images on both Alamy and microstock or not.

Just had a low 3-figure sale pop in this morning on here despite the image being widely available on 14 other agencies....for as little as 2cents. Do Alamy buyers shop around...most don't and won't for many reasons and some have nothing to do with price points. I tried to answer this crucial question on a blog post.

 

[Pietrach]

A slightly different though from me. 

I myself started to expand to other agencies as to me the downward pricing trend will not stop, and eventually Alamy will become one of many microstock agencies. Why do I think so? The main reason for this is that I really do not think that the prices some of us are hoping for are justified. Lets look at musicians or writers. To write and produce a music (a song), or to write a book takes (usually) much more effort than to take a good  photograph. I would say this is true for vast majority of images. However, the royalty a musician gets when his song is listened, or even purchased is not much different than an image  royalty on microstock agency. The same goes for a book - months spent writing, editing, publishing, marketing and an author gets just few $. In this light, why would images be going for $$$ or even $$? This is my reasoning, but I accept all sorts of opinions :) 

[Pietrach]

2 minutes ago, Olivier Parent said:

 

This might surprise you but there is not much correlation between effort and value.

You can earn millions with a single click, and work hard all your life in an ironfoundry for a very low income…

You are right, it would surprise me. There is always an effort, and so called "final click" is only the final stage of monetizing the extensive period of hard effort.  This is not to say that effore is always rewarded, as you pointed out, but there is no money without effort - unless you won Lotto or inherited money. 

[Cryptoprocta]

FTR, I'm not actually complaining about Alamy prices, they are what they are.

Having uploaded exclusively here for 2.5 years until December, that wasn't working for me, so I've changed my strategy.

Clearly others must do what works for them.

I'm just encouraging people to look at the facts, as particularlised to their own situation, and not just accept what some people say.

What works better for me might not work for someone else.

 

BTW, I do notice often, online and in print, that many buyers use Alamy, macros and micros - sometimes all to illustrate one article: I imagine (but don't know) that they have subs at them all and want to use up their allocation at each.

[CRS]

6 hours ago, Olivier Parent said:

 

No wonder why so many of us opted out of personal use scheme when the first sales came in.

 

I will probably do that as soon as it's possible.....I was too new at that stage to understand much about stock photography and sales, but I'm getting more clued up as I go along and especially reading these forums, much wiser now!

[CRS]

5 hours ago, george said:

I know it does not take much to confuse me, but this I am confused by. 
How can the image have been RF if it was a street scene with people unless the model releases were obtained for all people and releases for any property?  If not, if would surely have to be marked RF/Editorial, in which case how can it be sold as PU, surely PU is not editorial? 

no releases were obtained and it was marked clearly on the image plus I had noted that it was exclusive to Alamy and it was to be sold as editorial only....

[CRS]

4 hours ago, Starsphinx said:

Well, its more than I have made here - 2 sales both 99cs net.  I have more images selling from a smaller port on one of the microstocks and they are getting $2 net.  That did motivate me to start submitting to said microstock again.  I really do not care what sort of stock each company is going to describe itself as I am more interested in what money it is going to make and as long as microstock sales are double the price of here I am keeping my stuff spread out.

yes I have recently started doing the same as you and it's definitely selling better for me over on MS....still early days though!

[Pietrach]

38 minutes ago, Olivier Parent said:

 

Exactly! The "final click" on the shutter is only the final stage of an extensive period of hard effort and constant renewal of expensive gear.

Let's agree to disagree. My portfolio comprises mostly editorial, where effort is minimal, and I have the same camera since 2012. Let's not exaggerate the time and money spent on our images.

[george]

50 minutes ago, CRS said:

no releases were obtained and it was marked clearly on the image plus I had noted that it was exclusive to Alamy and it was to be sold as editorial only....

So my question (to Alamy I guess, unless someone else can answer) is, if an image is annotated as RF/editorial only, how can it be sold as PU? Personal use does surely not include using in an editorial article? I understood it to be for home print, use on gift cards (not for sale) that type of thing. 

Anyway, not your issue CRS as you stated all the info required. 

[CRS]

12 minutes ago, george said:

So my question (to Alamy I guess, unless someone else can answer) is, if an image is annotated as RF/editorial only, how can it be sold as PU? Personal use does surely not include using in an editorial article? I understood it to be for home print, use on gift cards (not for sale) that type of thing. 

Anyway, not your issue CRS as you stated all the info required. 

I'm sure it was PU but I stand to be corrected as I was overseas at the time and briefly saw the sale and only looked at it again when I got back home two months later, but that stage I could not see all the details just the price it was sold for.....however no sales have come through since that one in 2018

[Starsphinx]

5 hours ago, Olivier Parent said:

 

The point is not how the company describes itself but how you value your own work. One thing you can take for granted: you will never get more than what you are asking for! Happy to sell your images for $0.50? Just don't ask why nobody pays $50 for one of them and why it is becoming so hard to earn a living from photography.

If said one image on microstock sells 100 times I consider it to have earned $50, not $0.50.
I do not count value in wealth either.  The value of the photo to me is that I actually managed to get out and take it - and for someone with health issues that is worth a hell of a lot more than money.  The value of my photographs to me is the memories they evoke.    That I can look back through my images over time and see how I have improved and changed and explored new things.  Their financial worth is something separate.
I also accept the value I put on something is not the value someone else puts on the same thing.  Right now the customers at a microstock agency value my photographs more than customers at Alamy - they are buying them more often and paying more for them.  A parent will put an immense value on a scribble done by their toddler - said scribble generally has no value to me.
If some people wish to value their photographs for the money others are willing to pay for them that is fine - everyone is different.  I am more in the line of what is the total income my whole port can bring in.  My point was that if people value their photos by what people will pay for me at least people will pay more elsewhere.  Do I skip around the room when I sell an image for $2?  Nope.  If I come down one day and find an image on here has sold for $$$ will I skip around the room?  Well I might yell "Yippee" as skipping around the room does not end well but yes I will be pleased - but I am not going be refusing to accept lots of $2 sales in the meantime in the hope that $$$ arrives - because it might not.

People are different - we all have different priorities, values, and ways of assessing things.  What is right for one is not right for another.