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11 hours ago, geogphotos said:

 

 

The system has been the in place since 2007. 

 

What never ceases to amaze me is that most of the complaining comes from people who quite happily sell on Shutterstock and the other micro stocks but think it is the end of the world if they get the same sort of fees on Alamy. 

 

Nobody is forced to supply micro stock.

Nobody is forced to sign up to Alamy Novel Use. 

 

 

Not every dissenting voice arises from microstock contributors and it remains questionable not to have an opt out other than yearly. No one forced anyone that's correct, however pricing outcomes for NU less transparent.  Many a business with their back to the wall since this pandemic, same for plenty of contributors here. 

 

It sounds very much like the original statement on reasons on NU has changed and is now being circumvented.  That is misleading. 

 

 

 

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6 minutes ago, R De Marigny said:

Not every dissenting voice arises from microstock contributors and it remains questionable not to have an opt out other than yearly. No one forced anyone that's correct, however pricing outcomes for NU less transparent.  Many a business with their back to the wall since this pandemic, same for plenty of contributors here. 

 

It sounds very much like the original statement on reasons on NU has changed and is now being circumvented.  That is misleading. 

 

 

 

 

In what way? 

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7 minutes ago, R De Marigny said:

NU here has become a trojan horse - microstock  through the backdoor

 

You are welcome to your opinion but NU is not micro stock and never has been. Microstock is low priced RF with no limits on usage.

 

A tiny price for a tiny use is what NU is about. The buyer can't pay the tiny fee and then use it as a book cover - it is for a very specific narrow use only. 

 

Personally my objection to microstock is not the fee but the licence.

 

And my concern with NU is that it hasn't really taken off so the low fees don't gain any volume for the photographer. Nonetheless I am content to let Alamy use my pics to experiment in this way.

 

My real complaint about low fees is with Getty and what has happened with Premium Access. To Alamy's credit it has not tried to compete on this for business with global media publishers getting pics for a few cents.

Edited by geogphotos
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9 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

My real complaint about low fees is with Getty and what has happened with Premium Access. To Alamy's credit it has not tried to compete on this for business with global media publishers getting pics for a few cents.

 

My only way to deal with the ridiculous prem access situation at the other place was to remove all my images with them and place them on Alamy

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13 minutes ago, Malcolm Park said:

 

My only way to deal with the ridiculous prem access situation at the other place was to remove all my images with them and place them on Alamy

 

I did the same with the images in my own Getty account. But I still have a lot there through an agency so it isn't so easy - I stopped adding more the best part of a year ago - and have made enquiries about the process of getting them taken down.  There can still be decent fees but they are getting fewer. It seems that the occasional unsuspecting buyer comes along and doesn't realise that the price calculator is a work of fiction for most. Some unsuspecting charity, church, or museum gets hit while the global publishers know how to squeeze the best deal.

 

13p to me for BBC website global homepage 🥴

 

And yes I do think we should stop being shy about exposing what is going on. 

Edited by geogphotos
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 17/02/2021 at 20:22, geogphotos said:

Quite likely part of a slide show embedded in a webpage travel report. Nobody is paying to visit that website, everybody wants to see pictures. 

 

There are plenty of competitors offering the same sort of images at very low fees. It is not hard to imagine that client contacting Alamy saying that they are ready to buy but want the same prices as they are paying elsewhere. Unfortunately it is where we are.

A race to the bottom, sad. 😞

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3 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

Yes there are certainly low points. But that is all you are ever going to get with micro stock. 

 

With Alamy there are also high points, and they seem to be getting higher and more frequent lately.

 

Country: United Kingdom
Usage: Advertising and promotion
Media: Television (advertising)

 

How many Shutterstock sales do you need to make that? 

$ 965.35

Nice.

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17 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

Yes there are certainly low points. But that is all you are ever going to get with micro stock. 

 

With Alamy there are also high points, and they seem to be getting higher and more frequent lately.

 

Country: United Kingdom
Usage: Advertising and promotion
Media: Television (advertising)

 

How many Shutterstock sales do you need to make that? 

$ 965.35

Wow! My sales prices are up too recently, but never had a sale that large....

Edited by Steve F
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46 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

Yes there are certainly low points. But that is all you are ever going to get with micro stock. 

 

With Alamy there are also high points, and they seem to be getting higher and more frequent lately.

 

Country: United Kingdom
Usage: Advertising and promotion
Media: Television (advertising)

 

How many Shutterstock sales do you need to make that? 

$ 965.35

Well done. Come on, what was it! 😊

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1 hour ago, Mr Standfast said:

Well done. Come on, what was it! 😊

 

 

A very ordinary building of minor historical importance in a well-known market town. Not in Suffolk. 

 

I'd spent most of that day on the famous places and this was the last subject that had happened to catch my eye earlier in the day.

 

So I sought it out took some snaps and then went for a bag of chips and a pint! 

 

Nobody else had bothered to photograph it. And it is Alamy exclusive. 

 

I'm thinking that there might be a message there😁

Edited by geogphotos
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1 hour ago, geogphotos said:

Yes there are certainly low points. But that is all you are ever going to get with micro stock. 

 

With Alamy there are also high points, and they seem to be getting higher and more frequent lately.

 

Country: United Kingdom
Usage: Advertising and promotion
Media: Television (advertising)

 

How many Shutterstock sales do you need to make that? 

$ 965.35

 

and even if they did, you could easily end up with less than $200 in you bank account.  

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On 05/03/2021 at 12:23, geogphotos said:

 

 

A very ordinary building of minor historical importance in a well-known market town. Not in Suffolk. 

 

I'd spent most of that day on the famous places and this was the last subject that had happened to catch my eye earlier in the day.

 

So I sought it out took some snaps and then went for a bag of chips and a pint! 

 

Nobody else had bothered to photograph it. And it is Alamy exclusive. 

 

I'm thinking that there might be a message there😁

 

Well done for the sale. As a fairly low volume seller (currently) my "worry" about getting one of these larger sales is what if it got refunded and then I am left with months of future sales royalties just falling into a black hole to fill the void. Have I misunderstood how this works? Haven't yet had a three figure sale here (or a refund!) but there is a first for everything in life.

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10 minutes ago, Cal said:

 

Well done for the sale. As a fairly low volume seller (currently) my "worry" about getting one of these larger sales is what if it got refunded and then I am left with months of future sales royalties just falling into a black hole to fill the void. Have I misunderstood how this works? Haven't yet had a three figure sale here (or a refund!) but there is a first for everything in life.

That is how it works. A refund comes off your balance so if it puts it into the red you have to wait for more sales to get you back into the black. That most be quite unusual though, it's never happened to me.

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23 minutes ago, Cal said:

 

Well done for the sale. As a fairly low volume seller (currently) my "worry" about getting one of these larger sales is what if it got refunded and then I am left with months of future sales royalties just falling into a black hole to fill the void. Have I misunderstood how this works? Haven't yet had a three figure sale here (or a refund!) but there is a first for everything in life.

I've had a few $$$ sales, and maybe I'm lucky compared to other contributors, but out of 208 total sales, I've only ever had 1 refunded. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

Plus, unlike some others, it's not like either of us are getting significant income in any case 🙃

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  • 1 month later...

I've had quite a few $00.01 'sales' somewhere else and that has been for RM non-micro images.

 

And 13p to me for the BBC News global homepage. 

 

This is what microstock creates. That's where we are. 

 

But with Alamy I did get a sale just under $1k recently and quite a few in the mid $$$ range. 

 

Take the rough with the smooth.

 

 

Edited by geogphotos
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Hi all...

 

I almost never post here as I find stock photo industry now just too depressing; but two .25 cent licences, this morning, made me sit up and take notice.

At first thought this might be something to do with Novel Use. Checked and found that I had opted in to the scheme back in 2018, but these don't appear to be novel use. Still it coincidentally being April,  I took the opportunity to opt out again immediately.

 

Significantly, both licences are listed as editorial 

 

Country: Worldwide
Usage: Editorial, Single use across website and/or digital publication such as E-book or PDF, any size, any placement, in perpetuity.
Media: Editorial website
Start: 08 April 2021
End: 08 January 2022

 

As a photographer who has been with Alamy for more than 20 years  I really can't find the words to express my dismay at what is being done to our craft. Twenty five cents for single use, editorial, any size, any placement, in perpetuity (though oddly it lists a 2021/22 start and finish date). Can you imagine how this is compounded for me by being one of those dinosaurs who can remember waking up one glorious morning to find that Alamy had negotiated a multiple use, one month licence of one of my photos for over $US9k

 

Off to self medicate...

 

Best to all...

 

Rob 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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