Editorial image submission

[Michelle B Photography]

Could someone point me in the correct direction in order to understand Alamy's editorial guidelines?  On other sites, if there are no releases, I'm required to submit certain images (containing people/places, etc.) as editorial only.  While uploading to Alamy, it appears that I can choose editorial as an option...but its not manditory?

What is the best way to submit images that wouldn't/couldn't be used for marketing purposes?

 

I hope this question makes sense...thank you in advance for you time and help!

 

Michelle

[Betty LaRue]

1 hour ago, Michelle B Photography said:

Hi Betty - if you're referring to the images of Gamla Stan streets...they are tagged with with cobblestone and cobblestone streets...

Yes they are, Michelle! Sorry...I should have expanded your tags. 

[Betty LaRue]

I grew up on a street paved with bricks stamped Acme brick. A lot of the town streets were brick. And still are, but a few have been paved over. I don’t think they have the bricks to replace them when damage occurs so they patch a lot. Those brick streets have been there probably 100 years...so I would say they are economical.

I always loved the look of our red brick streets.

[MizBrown]

9 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

I figured most of the cobblestone streets the US has would be in the east, the oldest settled area.  I’ve been in the NE twice, but we mainly skirted the cities. More interested in nature...especially the beautiful leaf-peeping New England trip. Since I’d never thought of cobblestones at that time, I doubt I would have recognized a cobblestone street if it smacked me in the face.

If I traveled there now, I’d notice.

Betty

 

We had cobblestone streets and brick streets in Philadelphia in the older neighborhoods.  Nicaragua has concrete pavers that the real estate people describe as cobblestones, but they're cast commercial pavers, not stone.  All of these are easy to take up and repair the road surface and lay back down.   Asphalt requires more tech and skill to deal with, and I suspect that poured concrete with expansion/compression material between the pours also requires a bit more of knowing what people are doing.  The blocks -- stone, brick, or concrete -- can be laid with marginally skilled labor.  If labor is cheap, pavers make sense, stone or concrete.  For stone or brick you need a source of stone or clay.  Charleston, SC, had some streets paved with ballast stones.

[Marianne]

Michelle, I see that Joseph gave you a very thorough answer. 

 

When I saw the reference to Gamla Stan, I had to check out your portfolio. Great variety and lovely travel images around the world. 

[Marianne]

23 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

👍 Not everywhere has cobblestones streets. I’ve never seen them in the US. That doesn’t mean we don’t have them, but if we do, they are as rare as hen’s teeth. Possibly somewhere in the original 13 colonies, but I don’t know.

If they piqued my interest, maybe it’s worth identifying them.

 

Actually, Betty, we have them in NYC and I've seen them in many small towns up and down the east coast (the original 13) as well as out in Columbus, Ohio. What we often think of as "cobblestone" is sometimes actually 'Belgian block" but they both have the same feeling - uneven but long lasting unlike our asphalt which gets potholes every winter.  There's an area in Columbus called Victorian Village that has cobblestones, Belgian Block, red bricks in different patterns, each street seems to vary. Where my daughter used to live in Clintonville (another area of Columbus) also had several cobblestone alleys, so there are some out in the midwest too. 

[NYCat]

1 hour ago, Betty LaRue said:

I figured most of the cobblestone streets the US has would be in the east, the oldest settled area.  I’ve been in the NE twice, but we mainly skirted the cities. More interested in nature...especially the beautiful leaf-peeping New England trip. Since I’d never thought of cobblestones at that time, I doubt I would have recognized a cobblestone street if it smacked me in the face.

If I traveled there now, I’d notice.

Betty

 

Betty, those cobblestone streets do come up and smack you in the face if you have not been picking up your feet. The good news is that in NYC you will pick up your head to see several sets of legs waiting to help you up. In a slightly different situation, I had a cut above my eye and someone called an ambulance while another woman brought out a chair for me and waited with me. I ran into her about a year later close to the same spot and could thank her again. Sometimes it is a big advantage to live where there are many people on the street.

 

Paulette

[Joseph Clemson]

Returning to the OP's original question, I raised this with Alamy contributor support some time ago. This is the reply I received.

 

If you're licensing your images as RF then we recommend you do tick the 'sell for editorial only box' but as you are licensing the images as RM then you don’t necessarily need to have these restrictions.

This will however open up the option to customers to purchase commercial licenses but as long as you have annotated the images correctly by saying they contain unreleased people and/or property then customers are notified with the following; “If you want to use the image commercially, you might also need permission from the model, artist, owner, estate, trademark or brand”. This puts the onus on them to ensure that should they wish to use an image commercially, they will need to seek releases themselves.

We've written a blog that might help: http://bit.ly/2UdRb75

 

I then further queried why RM and RF images were treated differently as far as the editorial only tick box is concerned. The reply was thus...

 

With RM, the customer has to declare details of the use before a license is issued i.e. what the use is, what size they need, how long the image will be used for etc. With RF the customer simply has to pick a size they want, and they can use that however, wherever and whenever.

 

Both license types can be used for editorial or commercial, but RF is often more associated with commercial as they are usually released images, and the customer doesn’t have to declare all the details of the use. This is why we have always advised that images that contain unreleased people and property should be RM, as this reduces the risk of the image being used commercially. When we introduced RF-Editorial, you could have annotated the unreleased images as RM or RF-Ed.

 

So long as you have annotated that the image contains people/property, and that there are no releases, the onus will be on the customer to clear the image for commercial use if that was what they wanted to use it for.

 

We don’t want to encourage or discourage you from restricting your images, but as I mentioned above, the most important thing is that they are annotated correctly. We have found that customers sometimes get scared off by restricted images, which is why we have sent emails to contributors with restricted images, as there may be restrictions that have been added unnecessarily.

 

In summary, just make sure that your images are correctly annotated, and if they are unreleased, they should be RM or RF-Ed

 

I am also aware that in some cases Alamy ask us to tick the editorial only box even on RM images. I can't give an exhaustive list of subjects this applies to, but I seem to remember that the Network Rail owned railway stations come into this category. Others may be able to add to this....

 

[Joseph Clemson]

Just to add to the confusion, the cobblestones in Michelle's pictures are, strictly speaking, known as setts and it is properly a setted road. Setts are regular shaped, quarried stone. Proper cobblestones are naturally shaped stones set into a mortar base. Having said all that, most people do not differentiate between the two types and 'cobbled road' or 'cobblestones' is likely to be used for roads of both types.  If I was keywording a picture of a setted road I would probably use the keywords 'setts' and 'setted road'  just in case someone was looking for that specific type.

[Betty LaRue]

I figured most of the cobblestone streets the US has would be in the east, the oldest settled area.  I’ve been in the NE twice, but we mainly skirted the cities. More interested in nature...especially the beautiful leaf-peeping New England trip. Since I’d never thought of cobblestones at that time, I doubt I would have recognized a cobblestone street if it smacked me in the face.

If I traveled there now, I’d notice.

Betty

[Allan Bell]

It's all a lot of cobbles.🤣

 

Allan

 

[Michael Ventura]

We have cobblestone streets in Georgetown (Washington DC) and also in Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia.  

[Cryptoprocta]

6 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

👍 Not everywhere has cobblestones streets. I’ve never seen them in the US. That doesn’t mean we don’t have them, but if we do, they are as rare as hen’s teeth. Possibly somewhere in the original 13 colonies, but I don’t know.

There are cobblestone streets in Beacon Hill in Boston.

[NYCat]

Yes, we have them here in NYC and you inspired me to take out my iPhone and get a couple of snaps to send to Stockimo.

 

Paulette

[Johnnie5]

https://bit.ly/2RZz6co

 

[Michelle B Photography]

2 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Michelle, you have two images on your first page of street scapes. Those look like cobblestones to me but I’m no expert. If they are, please use in your tags:

cobblestone

cobblestones

cobblestone street

cobblestone road

etc

A few months ago I became interested in cobblestones and investigated them a bit.

Betty

Hi Betty - if you're referring to the images of Gamla Stan streets...they are tagged with with cobblestone and cobblestone streets...

[Betty LaRue]

1 hour ago, wiskerke said:

 

Where did this come from then?

😀

 

wim

 

All I saw was poured concrete, no cobblestones! Just because they sang of them, didn’t mean they’d ever seen them! 😁 if that is cobblestones, then the street in front of my house is cobblestones, lol.

[wiskerke]

16 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

👍 Not everywhere has cobblestones streets. I’ve never seen them in the US. That doesn’t mean we don’t have them, but if we do, they are as rare as hen’s teeth. Possibly somewhere in the original 13 colonies, but I don’t know.

If they piqued my interest, maybe it’s worth identifying them.

 

Where did this come from then?

😀

 

wim

 

[Betty LaRue]

15 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

 

Good thinking Betty, I've just amended some of my images too. Also suggest adding

 

cobbled

 

Mark

👍 Not everywhere has cobblestones streets. I’ve never seen them in the US. That doesn’t mean we don’t have them, but if we do, they are as rare as hen’s teeth. Possibly somewhere in the original 13 colonies, but I don’t know.

If they piqued my interest, maybe it’s worth identifying them.

[M.Chapman]

10 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

Michelle, you have two images on your first page of street scapes. Those look like cobblestones to me but I’m no expert. If they are, please use in your tags:

cobblestone

cobblestones

cobblestone street

cobblestone road

etc

A few months ago I became interested in cobblestones and investigated them a bit.

Betty

 

Good thinking Betty, I've just amended some of my images too. Also suggest adding

 

cobbled

 

Mark

[Betty LaRue]

Michelle, you have two images on your first page of street scapes. Those look like cobblestones to me but I’m no expert. If they are, please use in your tags:

cobblestone

cobblestones

cobblestone street

cobblestone road

etc

A few months ago I became interested in cobblestones and investigated them a bit.

Betty

[Harry Harrison]

 

25 minutes ago, Michelle B Photography said:

I have decided to leave it and just assume that Alamy will do with it what it will

 

Thanks Michelle,

 

Others may have different opinions of course. We're not allowed to discuss other libraries here but speaking in general terms when you've checked the editorial box elsewhere has that been more or less a shorthand for no property release, no model release?

[Michelle B Photography]

Thank you Chuck and Harry!

 

Harry...you are understanding my question exactly!  I always answer the image release questions, but didn't know whether I still needed to check the "editorial only" box.  I have decided to leave it and just assume that Alamy will do with it what it will.  I'm just hoping that it gets seen and offered!  Thank you!

 

Chuck...yes!  I am in Yakima!  Originally from Texas, but here for the past 20 years!  Don't plan on leaving the PNW unless something better ever comes up!  Thank you!

 

[Harry Harrison]

In my view the guidance, and the conclusions to be drawn from it are not very clear and it has been discussed on here quite a lot. For RM I gather that in the fairly recent past there was no 'Editorial' option (please correct me if I'm wrong) so that if you checked no model release and no property release that was it, in fact even if you didn't go into the 'Optional' tab to deal with those options the image would, and still does, display as having neither. There seem to be differing views as to how to use the additional 'Editorial only' check box, indeed some choose never to use it at all.

[Chuck Nacke]

Michelle,

 

It is pretty simple.  When are asked "Do you have a release" and you answer "NO"

It is automatic on Alamy's side.

 

PS Are you in Eastern Washington?  I'm from Richland, WA originally.  Alamy has a

wonderful image of the McDonalds that I went to in Yakima when I was 5 years old.

 

Chuck