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Difficulty getting through to Live News


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4 hours ago, Chuck Nacke said:

Just for the record, I have communicated with Live News easily over the years.

emails returned promptly and I've spoken with both London and New York when

it was necessary.  

 

Chuck

 

You have been lucky Chuck. Prior to the Coronavirus Pandemic I emailed Live News and attached 1 of 8 images that were full prepared and ready to FTP (I had previously submitted to Live News for two years before the infamous cull) It took TWO day for Alamy to reply. If I'm ever in such a position again I will go direct to the papers that have previously published me.

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Just to be clear, they did respond to my inquiry about three hours after I emailed them from a different email address. So I got in. They asked how many photos I would submit. I said about ten, and ended up submitting eighteen. I felt sort of bad about taking advantage but I didn't feel I had time to make decisions. And then some I would have eliminated turned up much higher than the others in the search engine. If anyone wants to comment on that or give me feedback on these, feel free. Here is my feed. Too many photos? Mediocre quality? Any suggestions on how to get even better shots? Placement in the search engines for these is extremely high and they don't look like a lot of the others there. No sales though. It's only my second time submitting for Live News.

 

https://www.alamy.com/news/newsresults.aspx?fbclid=IwAR0yJNl7HWuht4eaUD0D-fAOakrRQwBsucGRGeVU3zMb9chLRB9d57GSst4#BHM=foo%3Dbar%26qt%3D%26pn%3D1%26ps%3D120%26aoa%3D%26news%3D1%26sports%3D%26entmt%3D%26Videos%3D%26bb%3D1%26md%3DOL11235822%26dt%3D%26gid%3D{A80F7B7D-19E4-4F1D-BD2C-EDD2A231DE2A}%26destxml%3D%26imglst%3D%26orderby%3DDT%26newsseq%3D%26userid%3D{8C460FB4-8E58-4C1A-9E28-91A6ACBE9190}%26rand%3D1604830653136

 

I wrote them back to see if they can fix it so my regular email address does not get blocked. I think they have to do that on their end. No reply. So we'll see what happens next time.

 

I'd like to do it again.

 

What a wonderful, happy night that was. I'm happy to have a record it. 🙏

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Kristin,

 

2D9X095 - a picture in the sun with topical subject, someone with a camera and a dog!!!!!! In a timely fashion!

 

I think you should mention this when you ask for permanent acess to live news.

 

Stay safe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Mr Standfast
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To be fair to the Live News team, who I have always found to be very responsive, my understanding is that they are working with a much reduced staff.  Their primary function is to get news photos reviewed and, when appropriate, out to publications.  Despite the reduction in live news contributors, there is still a high level of contributor photographs that must be checked (title, caption, suitability etc) and decisions made as to clients to which they are dispatched, all in a tight time frame.  

I understand the argument that news items caught by non live news contributors can be most important but I suspect it is all about resources.  

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13 hours ago, PAL Media said:

I wouldn't worry about the quantity of images, as long as they are not similars.

You say you'd like to do it again, who's stopping you, that's the key to live news, getting out there everyday!

And I think you may have a download via the us The Sun website, however trying to find it on a scrolling live feed so long after it was used is near impossible, you need to look yourself on the day it was taken. See below for long link of search (little girl piñata) scroll down for usage in The Sun US

https://www.google.com/search?tbs=sbi:AMhZZit7A1_1qG8rgeekZSJys8PEnjxXZwHF1fff7NxeWEyVYr7CAOH_1BMgLVSxQuDKEwpXKSKn11cFG7WGCBHCsoaZP7I43hlSkd5AGjAlhvBIthaZFWV1V0R446bnFxcx7ZbblP8y_11oBRgtRHDwmU6eoLw-9OOWACP01dja1SqJJHu8lRGjY5dmEzz_18YdmH0wfYLNhOmrK3IZtrKO--qMj2BjJN5ZCJYqy9MMSPvqc6b3xP9BHS4n82s58rAK-CEj1Y6c7bW7oaWUypEHsM952x3_1FldXIc2LrQwuEolsXKdUcHxP8yA03ECpGO4WjET4dFtw0L4j

 

Whoa. THANK YOU. I scrolled all the way down and couldn't find it as it seems to be too long ago. Bummer but cool, I guess. Will I get paid?

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13 hours ago, kay said:

I've just had a quick look using google image search and have also found 3 uses.  I can only see them on what looks like a scraper news site 

https://thegreatcelebrity.com/world-news/us-election-2020-results-live-trump-refuses-to-go-to-bidens-inauguration/

The text below it fits with this article in the Sun, so I guess the pics were used by the Sun - maybe the same usage found by Paul ^.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13138604/trump-fumes-not-attend-biden-inauguration-white-house-candles/

Congratulations!

 

Thank you!!! I wish I could see it in the Sun. Can't find it there. Amazing.

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13 hours ago, Mr Standfast said:

Kristin,

 

2D9X095 - a picture in the sun with topical subject, someone with a camera and a dog!!!!!! In a timely fashion!

 

I think you should mention this when you ask for permanent acess to live news.

 

Stay safe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was literally taking the photos standing with my bike between my legs. Live News is hard for me though without a laptop or a car. Thanks for the encouragement!

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20 minutes ago, PAL Media said:

If you don't see it reported within the next 4 months contact Alamy, they will confirm they have a download, but if they can't find the usage, it's your responsibility to provide them with evidence of usage (screen grab) and if you haven't got it, well... The Sun gets away with another one

Sign up to CopyTrack, and upload all of your live news images, within a week it should find all usages of those images. Ignore any scrappers sites (unless you want to sue), but it will provide links to legitimate usages which you can then use as proof of usage for Alamy.

 

Thank you so much for the training. 🙂 My friend who is a journalist in the UK says The Sun has the most money of all the tabloids so they pay the most. Here's hoping. I got screen grabs of the links in the search engines and the references to the sun in the scraper sites. Learned so much today.

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On 14/11/2020 at 08:52, The Blinking Eye said:

 

 

I wrote them back to see if they can fix it so my regular email address does not get blocked. I think they have to do that on their end. No reply. So we'll see what happens next time.

 

 

When I was having the problem, I completely failed to realise I was emailing them from a different address than is registered on my alamy account. It may well be they block any email address that isn't signed up to alamy, which would seem the logical thing to do.

 

The requirement to have permanent news access seems to be that you're proficient at it and can provide them with proof of a publication. So get that publication, and ask for access. Can't hurt to try. I know a lot of people had their access removed and I'm wondering if it was a tactical move from alamy to stop people effectively bypassing QC and uploading punnets of strawberries and other such photos which don't belong there.

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2 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

 

Thank you so much for the training. 🙂 My friend who is a journalist in the UK says The Sun has the most money of all the tabloids so they pay the most. Here's hoping. I got screen grabs of the links in the search engines and the references to the sun in the scraper sites. Learned so much today.

 

my couple of News for the Sun family got paid no problem, including the one like this that i could not get visible result in search, just a link that implied it.  But if it's only web blog news don't expect any big amount, mine were in the $ range.

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41 minutes ago, Cal said:

 

 

 

The requirement to have permanent news access seems to be that you're proficient at it and can provide them with proof of a publication. So get that publication, and ask for access. Can't hurt to try. I know a lot of people had their access removed and I'm wondering if it was a tactical move from alamy to stop people effectively bypassing QC and uploading punnets of strawberries and other such photos which don't belong there.

 

 

i don't think it was to avoid QC, because most of them were allowed the "Reportage" track which allows the same feature to bypass it, and i have seen it used this way.  It was more likely and efficiency decision at time.  This issue is they don't seem to have imposed it on some of their live news distributors, so they get the same type of non news upload over and over.

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48 minutes ago, Cal said:

I know a lot of people had their access removed and I'm wondering if it was a tactical move from alamy to stop people effectively bypassing QC and uploading punnets of strawberries and other such photos which don't belong there.

 

I very much doubt it. All I shot was news for a few years and I lost my live news upload. Every day you can view live news and see what should be stock uploaded. The agency photographers are the worst culprits. Now I shoot a mixture of reportage and more recently stock, of which I have a huge backlog to deal with.

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2 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

 

I don't have many hopes after my last two photos sold for $4 and $5 each. 😑

 

That's typical for the UK Sun, the only consolation is that they usually use a few from the same shoot, still, prices are abysmal.

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39 minutes ago, PAL Media said:

That would be old live news (stock)

The Sun seem to have a bulk agreement that results in $ web live news, sadly. Hopefully Kristin's images have found other web or print uses.

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22 hours ago, PAL Media said:

 

Just realised you're not in the UK, I guess they have a different price structure, (I always thought it was better than the UK's!)

what, the UK scheme doesn't pay the same based on where the contributor is from?  This is unfair.  @Alamyis this true?

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4 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

what, the UK scheme doesn't pay the same based on where the contributor is from?  This is unfair.  @Alamyis this true?

This is incorrect, pricing is not based on contributor location. If you are unsure about the sale, please get in touch with our contributors team so they can look into it for you. 

 

Thanks,

Elisabeth  

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Just now, Alamy said:

This is incorrect, pricing is not based on contributor location. If you are unsure about the sale, please get in touch with our contributors team so they can look into it for you. 

 

Thanks,

Elisabeth  

 

 

Thanks Elisabeth.  This is reassuring.  No the low amount was in line with what others have reported under the "scheme", but the notion that price was different by user was also worrying.

 

 

Have a good week,

 

 

 

 

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On 15/11/2020 at 03:55, Cal said:

 

When I was having the problem, I completely failed to realise I was emailing them from a different address than is registered on my alamy account. It may well be they block any email address that isn't signed up to alamy, which would seem the logical thing to do.

 

 

For me though, the address that was blocked was the one registered with Alamy and one that I had actually used before for Live News. Then I contacted them with a totally unrelated address and offered just my name, and they replied and opened the portal. So it's totally inconsistent and I have no idea what will happen next time.

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2 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

 

For me though, the address that was blocked was the one registered with Alamy and one that I had actually used before for Live News. Then I contacted them with a totally unrelated address and offered just my name, and they replied and opened the portal. So it's totally inconsistent and I have no idea what will happen next time.

 

Network Operations Center monkeys screw up from time to time.  I'd email them at the contributors relations address and see if anyone can get that fixed.  If it bounces from there, you need to try contacting Alamy people through the Alamy section of this site. 

 

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1 hour ago, MizBrown said:

 

Network Operations Center monkeys screw up from time to time.  I'd email them at the contributors relations address and see if anyone can get that fixed.  If it bounces from there, you need to try contacting Alamy people through the Alamy section of this site. 

 

 

Thanks, I did email contributors@alamy when I couldn't get in and got a form letter back. I should do that again, since the live news people didn't reply to my message about the problem.

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3 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

 

Thanks, I did email contributors@alamy when I couldn't get in and got a form letter back. I should do that again, since the live news people didn't reply to my message about the problem.

 

You might want to continue this on an individual case by case  situation until you have a track record of selling news photos.  The other option is to see about selling locally to get tear sheets together. 

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