geogphotos Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 (edited) I try I really do. I am not going to repeat everything that I have previously posted on this topic. I had to move all images to non-Exclusive and then spend around six months sorting the mess out until I was able to divide them into Ex and No-Ex. I lost a lot of money in that time because I only got 40% of all sales even for images which were Ex. Alamy would not refund me for those. The problem in a nutshell is that agencies themselves aren't all that quick at supplying information, and they take quite a long time to delete images after them being requested. Some get deleted before others, and requests for spreadsheets may not be responded to - why should an agency spend time and money supplying a contributor with information to help another competing agency? I have a selection of images in the pipeline for XXXX Images. I have waited almost a year for them to be uploaded in the past, Sometimes it is much quicker. Sometimes the whole batch goes live at the same time, some time not - it may depend on the processing of different categories of images ( different 'brands' etc). So at the moment every few days I do a search of XXXX Images to check if I can find any of the pipeline images that have gone live, knowing that even when I find one or two that might not include all of them. Of course I could label them as Non-Ex straight after the edit but that means voluntarily giving up 20% commission for no reason. As I have said before systems work well when good behaviour is rewarded, this system punishes honesty and good behaviour. Had I done nothing since the announcement at the end of 2018 wouldn't I have been a lot better off even with any possible 'punishment' for 'forgetting'? Edited March 18, 2020 by geogphotos 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geogphotos Posted March 18, 2020 Author Share Posted March 18, 2020 (edited) And where is the upside since Exclusive images are not highlighted to buyers and there does not seem to be any premium paid for them. Okay you don't lose the 20% but that is a weird sort of 'incentive'. All stick, no carrot. At a time of £300 billion support for the economy is Alamy going to announce some measures to support its suppliers? Edited March 18, 2020 by geogphotos 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 1 hour ago, geogphotos said: And where is the upside since Exclusive images are not highlighted to buyers and there does not seem to be any premium paid for them. Okay you don't lose the 20% but that is a weird sort of 'incentive'. All stick, no carrot. At a time of £300 billion support for the economy is Alamy going to announce some measures to support its suppliers? I agree Ian - An "Exclusive to Alamy" tab would be very helpful for those of us with exclusive images, and also buyers, - but I think Alamy needs to be confident that the images really are exclusive, hence their recent posting Kumar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geogphotos Posted March 18, 2020 Author Share Posted March 18, 2020 17 minutes ago, Doc said: I agree Ian - An "Exclusive to Alamy" tab would be very helpful for those of us with exclusive images, and also buyers, - but I think Alamy needs to be confident that the images really are exclusive, hence their recent posting Kumar Yes I would hope so but as far as I know Alamy have not actually said anything about wanting to flag exclusive images to buyers or that being the reasoning behind the recent announcement. It could merely be that they want to tighten up to boost their revenue without doing anything else at all. If accurate labelling of Ex images was to be a benefit to contributors then it would have been sensible to explain that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geogphotos Posted March 18, 2020 Author Share Posted March 18, 2020 (edited) Just to add that if this is essentially just another way to squeeze revenue I would politely suggest that the timing is ...er......not great. I don't have any actual problem with Alamy enforcing its rules but neither do I relish the prospect of punishment beatings. Everybody in the country is anxious and facing an uncertain future. Loans are being offered to businesses to make sure that they survive if at all possible. As far as I know there is no direct help being offered to the self-employed but I have read about big companies such as Asda doing what they can to help their suppliers. Edited March 18, 2020 by geogphotos 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.Chapman Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 (edited) 7 hours ago, geogphotos said: And where is the upside since Exclusive images are not highlighted to buyers and there does not seem to be any premium paid for them. Okay you don't lose the 20% but that is a weird sort of 'incentive'. All stick, no carrot. +1 Indeed, it took me hours to cross-check for images that were available elsewhere and to mark as non-exclusive one at a time on AIM. Alamy further complicates matters by broadening the exclusive definition (i.e, I as a photographer have only placed this image on Alamy) to include images of artworks causing further work and loss of commission as more images have to be marked as non-exclusive. For what? A cut in commission and no visible additional marketing of exclusive images. Now a warning is posted on the forum. A lesson in how to frustrate rather than encourage contributors... Mark Edited March 18, 2020 by M.Chapman 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.Chapman Posted March 19, 2020 Share Posted March 19, 2020 (edited) It would have been encouraging to have seen a post along the following lines. "We are about to introduce measures to promote our collection of exclusive images. Therefore, in order to make sure that customers are not misled, we need you to doubly check your images are correctly marked. In order to help we will be carrying out some automated checks on images marked as exclusive. You are also reminded that correct annotation of images is a requirement of Alamy's contributor contract”. Mark Edited March 19, 2020 by M.Chapman 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geogphotos Posted March 19, 2020 Author Share Posted March 19, 2020 Yes some sort of encouragement, empathy, support, some sort of recognition of what is facing contributors, even appreciation that it isn't always so easy just to respond the contract change? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meanderingemu Posted March 19, 2020 Share Posted March 19, 2020 agreed with everything of the above. I also think the guidance of what can be exclusive has been left so vague that those of us who are taking it as wide end up being penalised. I had images that i felt were extremely similar to other on other sites, so i marked them as Not Exclusive, and lost 20% on the sale. But on one of the discussion in November on the forum, when i showed two pictures 4 seconds apart with exactly the same story, Alamy representative, stated, no these are different? So what is the exact definition? Do i just need to always take bursts images and upload two separate streams making sure one little thing changed? also "If your collection contains images of artworks these can never be marked as Exclusive to Alamy, unless you're the artist." Again no clarity, is this images of only artworks or Images of artworks. I had images where Alamy specifically altered the info to make them Editorial Only because of artwork, but allowed them to stay Exclusive, so i assume it's fine... Is this an image of Artwork? i think so, but until more guidance, i am leaving it as exclusive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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