Actual commission rates paid?

[Phil Friar Photography]

I have not been very active with Alamy since I joined, however recently two of my photographs have sold and I decided to submit a lot more photos. However I have noticed that the second sale of $28.20 has had $19.74 taken out for Alamy's commission. That is 70%. I was of the belief that I would receive 50% for an image exclusively supplied to Alamy.

Can anyone put me right on this?

[John Morrison]

It is likely to be a 'distributor' sale: ie via a third party...

[gvallee]

Details will be in Account Balance on your dashboard. Very likely a distributor sale as John said, or an affiliate.

Edited December 12, 2020 by gvallee

[spacecadet]

11 hours ago, Phil Friar Photography said:

I have not been very active with Alamy since I joined, however recently two of my photographs have sold and I decided to submit a lot more photos. However I have noticed that the second sale of $28.20 has had $19.74 taken out for Alamy's commission. That is 70%. I was of the belief that I would receive 50% for an image exclusively supplied to Alamy.

Can anyone put me right on this?

Direct sales are 50%. On distro sales the distro's commission is 40% and Alamy's 30. We get the remaining 30.

We get 43.5% of an affiliate sale.

Edited December 12, 2020 by spacecadet

[meanderingemu]

4 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Direct sales are 50%. On distro sales the distro's commission is 40% and Alamy's 30. We get the remaining 30.

We get 43.5% of an affiliate sale.

as described in the agreement OP agreed to...😁

[tgmd]

We had several sales in August and November... still not paid.  The Brooklyn office isn't accepting calls, nor have my emails been addressed.  It appears they are using our images and not paying commissions.  In addition, the percentage paid is offensive, the 50/50 doesn't seem to be the rule anymore.

Since the merger of the company the commissions do not seem to be paid in a timely manner. Is anyone else have difficulty?

[Alamy]

17 hours ago, tgmd said:

We had several sales in August and November... still not paid.  The Brooklyn office isn't accepting calls, nor have my emails been addressed.  It appears they are using our images and not paying commissions.  In addition, the percentage paid is offensive, the 50/50 doesn't seem to be the rule anymore.

Since the merger of the company the commissions do not seem to be paid in a timely manner. Is anyone else have difficulty?

 

Hi tgmd, 

 

Did you email our Contributor Relations team (contributors@alamy.com)? They normally get back to you within the hour if you email them within UK office hours. The only reason for not getting a reply would be if your question was already answered in our auto reply. To explain how it works with sales and payments, we report sales instantly, and you'll be paid once we've received the money from the customer. It will then show up in your Account Balance as cleared. Once you have a cleared amount of over $50 we'll pay you on our next payment run which is at the start of every month.  

 

 

All the best,

Elisabeth    

[Avpics]

5 hours ago, Alamy said:

......, we report sales instantly........

That's confusing. Sometimes it'll take four months or more to have a sale reported, and often it's up to us to chase Alamy about sales we've seen used.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Avpics

[spacecadet]

18 hours ago, tgmd said:

We had several sales in August and November... still not paid.  The Brooklyn office isn't accepting calls, nor have my emails been addressed.  It appears they are using our images and not paying commissions.  In addition, the percentage paid is offensive, the 50/50 doesn't seem to be the rule anymore.

Since the merger of the company the commissions do not seem to be paid in a timely manner. Is anyone else have difficulty?

I have not noticed any difference.

As you are referring to commissions over 50% you must mean distributor sales which can take longer to report.

In any case no November licence would yet have cleared as it takes at least 45 days.

[Alamy]

3 hours ago, Avpics said:

That's confusing. Sometimes it'll it'll take four months or more to have a sale reported, and often it's up to us to chase Alamy about sales we've seen used.

To clarify, I was referring to direct sales made by Alamy to explain the difference between a reported sale and a cleared sale. Sales made by distributors will take longer to show up in the report as it is a third party involved.

 

Thanks,

Elisabeth 

[meanderingemu]

4 minutes ago, Alamy said:

To clarify, I was referring to direct sales made by Alamy to explain the difference between a reported sale and a cleared sale. Sales made by distributors will take longer to show up in the report as it is a third party involved.

 

Thanks,

Elisabeth 

 

 

This has not been my experience.  I have had many direct sales, mainly in the UK, that have taken weeks and months to be reported.  

 

note, i am not complaining about that, to me this is the Alamy system, and we have more pressing issues like images not being uploaded, and disappearing overnight... just stating a fact

Edited December 15, 2020 by meanderingemu

[Avpics]

38 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

This has not been my experience....

It's a little worrying that an Alamy employee isn't aware of one the major issues that we have as contributors, that of the long reporting delays and some not even being reported at all.

[Cal]

23 hours ago, tgmd said:

We had several sales in August and November... still not paid. 

 

Get used to it. I'm still waiting for cleared payments for two images sold in October that were zoomed in September (so in all likelihood actually sold in Sept but not reported to me until Oct). I'll consider myself lucky if I see the cash from those sales this month to be paid out in Jan's sales. And as I understand it, this wait of 3+ months isn't even long. It's a ridiculously slow process.

 

25 minutes ago, Avpics said:

It's a little worrying that an Alamy employee isn't aware of one the major issues that we have as contributors, that of the long reporting delays and some not even being reported at all.

 

Don't get me started! It reminds me of that meme with the dog sitting in a room on fire with the caption "this is fine!"

[spacecadet]

In fact the great majority of sales are reported straight away and even newspaper scheme sales usually self-report by the end of the month after the one in which they are used. I would say that 80- 90% of reports clear on schedule. If you have few sales it may appear worse than that but that may be down to the small sample size.

Apparently other agencies only report when they are paid- Alamy is unusual in reporting immediately, so in a way it makes a rod for its own back.

Edited December 15, 2020 by spacecadet

[Chuck Nacke]

5 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

In fact the great majority of sales are reported straight away and even newspaper scheme sales usually self-report by the end of the month after the one in which they are used. I would say that 80- 90% of reports clear on schedule. If you have few sales it may appear worse than that but that may be down to the small sample size.

Apparently other agencies only report when they are paid- Alamy is unusual in reporting immediately, so in a way it makes a rod for its own back.

+1 Mark, 

 

Someone that understands how the "Agency" or Library system works.

 

Chuck

Edited December 15, 2020 by Chuck Nacke
grammer

[spacecadet]

1 minute ago, Chuck Nacke said:

+1,  Someone that understands how the "Agency" or Library system works.

 

Chuck

Well I learnt from the best, Chuck

[Avpics]

If nothing else, it's reminded me to re-re-re-chase the unreported sales from the summer.

[Ognyan Yosifov]

.... I've been wondering for quite some time - what would've happened if I haven't found an unreported sale ....???

[Avpics]

On 15/12/2020 at 16:11, Ognyan Yosifov said:

.... I've been wondering for quite some time - what would've happened if I haven't found an unreported sale ....???

Nearly five months after the usage in a mainstream media, and probably a couple more months before payment, Alamy have asked me to re-send the link to the usages. I hope people can try to understand the frustration of contributors that have to take on the job of finding and keeping records of image uses that would otherwise go unrecorded and therefore stolen, and then having to hand over 50% or more. 

[Ognyan Yosifov]

15 minutes ago, Avpics said:

Nearly five months after the usage in a mainstream media, and probably a couple more months before payment, Alamy have asked me to re-send the link to the usages. I hope people can try to understand the frustration of contributors that have to take on the job of finding and keeping records of image uses that would otherwise go unrecorded and therefore stolen, and then having to hand over 50% or more. 

Yes, that what I meant.

To me using the Google reverse search, Copytrack and Tineye is not enough for finding usages.

Any suggestions for more precise search?

[Avpics]

5 minutes ago, Ognyan Yosifov said:

Any suggestions for more precise search?

Alamy's office perhaps? 😞

[Avpics]

12 minutes ago, PAL Media said:

I feel your pain, a never ending saga

Thanks to your suggestion Paul, I've started using Copytrack to locate my news images. I've hovered over the 'claim' button many a time attracted by the quoted potential fees, but managed to control the urge knowing that Alamy might actually report the sale at some time in the future.

[geogphotos]

52 minutes ago, PAL Media said:

I have a couple of claims in the 'processing' stage (€540) plus two others.

Don't bother with one man band websites without contact info, they won't bother with them.

 

 

 

Are these for web uses of images downloads from Alamy but never reported by the client?

[geogphotos]

29 minutes ago, PAL Media said:

No, of course not. These are lifted from legitimate sales.

 

 

So nothing to do with Alamy and unreported sales. I think we need to be careful not to confuse this with image theft unrelated to Alamy.

[geogphotos]

On 12/12/2020 at 01:16, Phil Friar Photography said:

I have not been very active with Alamy since I joined, however recently two of my photographs have sold and I decided to submit a lot more photos. However I have noticed that the second sale of $28.20 has had $19.74 taken out for Alamy's commission. That is 70%. I was of the belief that I would receive 50% for an image exclusively supplied to Alamy.

Can anyone put me right on this?

 

It is sale through a distributor agency. Alamy has not taken all of that 70%. It is the total commission taken. 

 

50% is for direct sales of exclusive images. 

[geogphotos]

3 minutes ago, PAL Media said:

I quoted avpics and copytrack

 

No problem. I'm just stating that Alamy cannot be held responsible for not reporting unauthorised uses. 

 

Maybe I have got confused.