What is a DACS payment

[Bryn L]

I have had a quick look around the site  but cant figure out what a DACS payment is. One landed on my account a few days ago. Cheers Bryn

[Joseph Clemson]

This is some information on DACS. Since a DACS payment has landed in your account it's safe to assume that Alamy are making a claim to DACS on your behalf. This is the case for many more recent contributors. Up until a few years ago contributors had the option to be opted out and make their own claim to DACS, thereby getting the full amount, rather than Alamy taking a 50% cut. This opt out is no longer available.

 

On this subject, the claim to DACS is increasingly weighting the DACS payment towards specific information being provided about which publications one's images have appeared in. Does anyone  know if Alamy submits the specificpublication detail for the claims they make on behalf of contributors? I'm wondering if it may eventually be more finacially rewarding to allow Alamy to do the claim, rather than submitting a claim of my own which has only a small amount of info on specific publications and therefore misses out on a proportion of the payment due.

[Bryn L]

Sorry, I am a bit new to this game.  Google has told me that DACS is Design and Artists Copyright Society.  So, is this some additional payment that I receive whenever an image is used?  My apologies for the dumb / naive questions.  Please feel free to point me towards some article/link to read, to explain it all.  Thanks in advance for taking the time to reply.  Bryn

[Joseph Clemson]

You'll find detail information in the article I linked to in my earlier reply. There are also other threads in the forum. But in brief,

 

1. DACS is UK focussed.. It collects payments from organisations such as libraries and universities for copies (eg. photocopies) made of copyright images in printed works.

2. Annually, DACS distributes this money to artists who have had photos of theirs published in UK magazines and books. 

3. Artists need to make a claim to DACS indicating how many qualifying images of theirs have been published in this way. Where possible the artist needs to supply the publication title and ISBN number.

4. Using a proportional formula to determime how much each contributor is due, DACS distributes the monies (less operating costs) to those artists who have made a claim.

5. Nowadays, Alamy makes a claim on behalf of its contributors (less a small number who are opted out and make their own claim). Alamy can easily do this because they know which sales qualify for DACS payment. 

6. The money lands in your Alamy balance about October each year. Alamy take a 50% slice for doing the work of preparing the claim.

 

ETA. Still images which are used in a UK TV programme also qualify for DACS payments. The vast majority of contributors here are happy to lets Alamy claim for TV usage because of the massive difficulty in spotting your own images in use over thousands of hours of TV progammes. Alamy won't tell you which production company the images licences were sold to, let alone for which programme.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Joseph Clemson

[Bryn L]

Sorry again!  I don’t spot that was a link, my fault.  Thank you again for your time and your detailed reply.

[Joseph Clemson]

10 minutes ago, Bryn L said:

Sorry again!  I don’t spot that was a link, my fault.  Thank you again for your time and your detailed reply.

 

 

Not a problem. Hope it provides some clarity for you.

[M.Chapman]

2 hours ago, Joseph Clemson said:

Does anyone  know if Alamy submits the specific publication detail for the claims they make on behalf of contributors? I'm wondering if it may eventually be more finacially rewarding to allow Alamy to do the claim, rather than submitting a claim of my own which has only a small amount of info on specific publications and therefore misses out on a proportion of the payment due.

 

From my posting in the other thread.

 

In 2017 I asked Alamy how many of my sales Alamy had the ISBN nos for and whether they would make a claim for the "distinct royalty pot" and they replied as follows.

 

As we are not claiming DACS on your behalf this year we don’t know any of the ISBN numbers so we can’t tell you how many we would have claimed for but it is likely to have been the same if not more than you claimed for. It is a lot of extra work for us to  find out this information which is why we take a cut.

We did submit claims for the ‘distinct royalty pot’ for all contributors eligible and we claimed for all sales where we had the ISBN numbers.

 

Mark

[Joseph Clemson]

4 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

 

From my posting in the other thread.

 

In 2017 I asked Alamy how many of my sales Alamy had the ISBN nos for and whether they would make a claim for the "distinct royalty pot" and they replied as follows.

 

As we are not claiming DACS on your behalf this year we don’t know any of the ISBN numbers so we can’t tell you how many we would have claimed for but it is likely to have been the same if not more than you claimed for. It is a lot of extra work for us to  find out this information which is why we take a cut.

We did submit claims for the ‘distinct royalty pot’ for all contributors eligible and we claimed for all sales where we had the ISBN numbers.

 

Mark

 

Thank you for that info, Mark.

[Cal]

On 01/11/2019 at 14:18, Joseph Clemson said:

This is some information on DACS. Since a DACS payment has landed in your account it's safe to assume that Alamy are making a claim to DACS on your behalf. This is the case for many more recent contributors. Up until a few years ago contributors had the option to be opted out and make their own claim to DACS, thereby getting the full amount, rather than Alamy taking a 50% cut. This opt out is no longer available.

 

 

I'm still trying to get my head round this and keep seeing it mentioned on here and get the feeling that I'm missing out on potential royalties. However reading your quoted paragraph it sounds like, as I'm a new-ish contributor that I don't have the option to opt out (I certainly don't see how to in my contributor panel) and that therefore there's no additional work for me to do anyway but wait for alamy to pay me where applicable?

Edited January 29, 2021 by Cal

[geogphotos]

7 minutes ago, Cal said:

 

I'm still trying to get my head round this and keep seeing it mentioned on here and get the feeling that I'm missing out on potential royalties. However reading your quoted paragraph it sounds like, as I'm a new-ish contributor that I don't have the option to opt out (I certainly don't see how to in my contributor panel) and that therefore there's no additional work for me to do anyway but wait for alamy to pay me where applicable?

 

If you only have stock sales through Alamy then you have nothing else to do. It is part of your contract that Alamy will claim for you. 

 

If you do have stock sales elsewhere you could claim direct for those and leave Alamy to claim the Alamy ones ( they take 50%). 

Edited January 29, 2021 by geogphotos

[Cal]

1 minute ago, geogphotos said:

 

If you only have stock sales through Alamy then you have nothing else to do. It is part of your contract that Alamy will claim for you. 

 

If you do have stock sales elsewhere you could claim direct for those and leave Alamy to claim the Alamy ones ( they take 50%). 

 

Top man... thanks. Just Alamy for me atm.

[spacecadet]

6 minutes ago, Cal said:

 

Top man... thanks. Just Alamy for me atm.

Only if you have images published in UK books or magazines or on UK TV channels can you expect a payment of any size. Alamy makes some claims to overseas collecting society schemes but the payments seem to be very small.