New Alamy Infringements Team

[geogphotos]

And please Alamy don't change your approach to image queries because of this. Please continue to be transparent and helpful and not 'do a DACS' on us. 

[John Mitchell]

1 minute ago, meanderingemu said:

@Alamy  is the election a one time thing?  How can we change it after?  

 

Bonne question, monsieur.

[geogphotos]

5 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Good point., but I have a feeling that your claws are much sharper than mine. I'm pretty lackadaisical when it comes to hunting infringers.

 

 

John I am only a beginner but I have learnt to my horror just how widespread infringement is and am realising that, rather unpleasant though it is, this is something that we just cannot ignore. People are stealing our images left, right, and centre. We should not be turning a blind eye to it. They should not be just taking advantage of us. 

 

I've had one saying that they thought is was 'quite an ordinary image so there was no harm in using it on my website' and then the old chestnut 'we have no budget for images' ( a large financial company)

Edited April 29, 2021 by geogphotos

[John Walker]

All of my images on Alamy are exclusive and I'm more than happy for them to chase any infringements.   I've found a number of infringements of my images over the years but I feel that Alamy is far better armed than me in chasing them up.  It's in both Alamy and my interest.

[John Mitchell]

14 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

 

 

John I am only a beginner but I have learnt to my horror just how widespread infringement is and am realising that, rather unpleasant though it is, this is something that we just cannot ignore. People are stealing our images left, right, and centre. We should not be turning a blind eye to it. They should not be just taking advantage of us. 

 

I've had one saying that they thought is was 'quite an ordinary image so there was no harm in using it on my website' and then the old chestnut 'we have no budget for images' ( a large financial company)

 

I'm thinking that, for a procrastinator like me, letting Alamy automatically chase infringers might be the best way to go because all the image-user has to say is that they licensed the image elsewhere. At least that way some action will have been taken. I don't know how Alamy would feel about this, though (hint, hint).

[Alamy]

4 minutes ago, kay said:

@Alamy I used to have some images on microstock sites but removed them some time ago and am now totally exclusive to alamy.  How will you know whether usages have been licensed from another agency in the past and are being used legitimately before chasing without referring to us first?  I ticked the 'don't need to refer to me before chasing' box in response to your email because my images are all exclusive to alamy, but now I've thought about it I'm not sure how this can work?

We’ll always ask the potential infringer if they have a valid licence first and to provide proof if so.

 

According to our current contributor contract, we’ve (you and us) agreed that we’ll inform each other should either of us be chasing an infringement. What we’re asking via this email is essentially can we bypass that bit in order to make the process more efficient. 
 

This is all about making sure we’re doing the right thing for all concerned as well as securing payments for both of us if they’re owed.

 

Cheers

 

Alamy

[Joseph Clemson]

Is there any chance that this new infringements team will be looking at the many PU licences purchased which ought to have been some other licence? My most recent was PU was a picture of a dead sheep in a field, not your usual subject  for a piece of wall art.

[Alamy]

1 hour ago, meanderingemu said:

@Alamy  is the election a one time thing?  How can we change it after?  

Just send an email to update us.

[geogphotos]

I would love to know more about the methods or partners that Alamy are going to be using to track down potential infringements. 

[Alamy]

3 minutes ago, Joseph Clemson said:

Is there any chance that this new infringements team will be looking at the many PU licences purchased which ought to have been some other licence? My most recent was PU was a picture of a dead sheep in a field, not your usual subject  for a piece of wall art.

May well not be wall art but could feasibly be artist reference for example - however if it has been used online and one of our infringement service partners finds it, it will be flagged and checked to have the appropriate licence. If it hasn’t got one, it can be pursued accordingly.

 

[geogphotos]

3 minutes ago, Alamy said:

May well not be wall art but could feasibly be artist reference for example - however if it has been used online and one of our infringement service partners finds it, it will be flagged and checked to have the appropriate licence. If it hasn’t got one, it can be pursued accordingly.

 

 

Will the infringement service partner ( Pixsy or whoever) be handed the case to pursue or will Alamy do it themselves?

 

This could be a very valuable benefit of being Alamy exclusive so is an important consideration. 

[John Mitchell]

23 minutes ago, Alamy said:

Just send an email to update us.

 

Thanks very much for the clarification.

[geogphotos]

51 minutes ago, Alamy said:

May well not be wall art but could feasibly be artist reference for example - however if it has been used online and one of our infringement service partners finds it, it will be flagged and checked to have the appropriate licence. If it hasn’t got one, it can be pursued accordingly.

 

 

 

The Alamy homepage offers online editorial use for just £29.99

 

What leverage does that offer to pursue infringements?

 

 

 

T

Edited April 29, 2021 by geogphotos

[Bill Brooks]

1 hour ago, geogphotos said:

 

Will the infringement service partner ( Pixsy or whoever) be handed the case to pursue or will Alamy do it themselves?

 

This could be a very valuable benefit of being Alamy exclusive so is an important consideration. 

 

I would like to know about any potential collection partners as well.

 

I would feel better if the outside collection agency would use their software to pinpoint the infraction. The outside agency could then turn that information over to Alamy who would do the actual collection.

 

Would this company be one of the potential collection partners? It seems to be owned by 3 individuals whose stock photo agency went bankrupt owing mostly photographers $4 million dollars in unpaid royalties. Having said that, in my opinion, they are organized, knowledgeable, and effective. I notice the Alamy logo has not yet appeared on their site.

https://picrights.com/en-gb/

[M.Chapman]

How will the proceeds from, and costs of any actions be handled? e.g. Alamy funds any costs, but distributes any net revenue generated from any action on a 50/50 basis? Or maybe the infringer will simply be asked to buy a retrospective licence and we get 50%? What about retrospective licences in distributor territories?

 

Mark

Edited April 29, 2021 by M.Chapman

[Alan Gallery]

In the last year more than 30% of my income from Alamy came from infringements I reported to Alamy.  This was mostly due to one particular publication using an image multiple times.

[Michael Ventura]

This is great news if Alamy actually has any teeth!  I think there is a lot of money to be had from infringements. 

[Foreign Export]

Always challenges in any new initiative - but im pleased to see this approach being taken by Alamy- and look forward to receiving some extra income resulting from it

[sb photos]

10 hours ago, Joseph Clemson said:

Is there any chance that this new infringements team will be looking at the many PU licences purchased which ought to have been some other licence? My most recent was PU was a picture of a dead sheep in a field, not your usual subject  for a piece of wall art.

 

Yes, a dead sheep in a field isn't likely to printed and framed on someones wall. As your dead sheep image sold perhaps I should scan a B&W neg of mine from the 1970's, one never forgotten. It was of an upturned dead sheep, just head bones a wool. A local farmer was prosecuted for neglecting his sheep. They weren't sheared and I believe couldn't stand up, died and was eventually devoured by wildlife.

[Radim]

Still no email has arrived yet, neither about the New Alamy Infringements Team, nor that I passed QC yesterday

Radim

[geogphotos]

11 hours ago, Bill Brooks said:

 

I notice the Alamy logo has not yet appeared on their site.

https://picrights.com/en-gb/

 

 

PA Media is there - that is who owns Alamy. So it looks like a likely candidate. 

[Colblimp]

28 minutes ago, Radim said:

Still no email has arrived yet, neither about the New Alamy Infringements Team, nor that I passed QC yesterday

Radim

You'll only receive an email if you've an infringement logged with Alamy at the moment...

[geogphotos]

New Alamy Infringements Team

We know how important it is to protect the use of your images against unauthorised use. Here at Alamy, we now have a dedicated Infringements Team in place who will shortly start working with multiple Partners to maximise our potential and secure payments for these images that are being used without a valid licence.          We'll pro-actively be looking for any usages that we believe may be an infringement.       This work will primarily be happening for the images in our collection marked as 'exclusive to Alamy'. You're receiving this email because you have at least one image marked as such.    Please can you confirm your preferences below.

Select your preferences here

Preferences:     You give Alamy permission to chase any potential infringements that we find from this group in your collection without notifying you first.             or                 You also license the use of your images outside of Alamy (from your own website for example) and Alamy need to advise you first regarding a potential infringement before we pursue it, so you can confirm that an existing valid licence is not already in place.              We look forward to working more closely with you on this important work.

[Harry Harrison]

I think everyone will get it in time, I've received it and I don't have any infringements.

[Vincent Lowe]

Interestingly, I clicked the 'go for it' option yesterday and this morning I had two sales drop in marked with 'License Upgrade'.  I don't think I've seen that before.  $120 total.   The title of the book was given for one and the name of the publisher for the other.  If this is the infringement team at work then I'm all for it!