Contract Change 2021 - Official thread

[John Morrison]

Is paranoia the eighth stage of grieving?

[meanderingemu]

16 minutes ago, Steve F said:

I don't think Alamy have the staff numbers or inclination to pick on individual contributors. Especially small fry like us.

 

but don't you see the big conspiracy all the Shareholders are withholding there sales report,  so they can get an extra pence dividend at the end of the year.  Makes me wonder why they reported the ones last month, since they already knew about this....  (why is there no tinfoil hat emoji?)

 

 

[Steve F]

1 minute ago, meanderingemu said:

 

but don't you see the big conspiracy all the Shareholders are withholding there sales report,  so they can get an extra pence dividend at the end of the year.  Makes me wonder why they reported the ones last month, since they already knew about this....  (why is there no tinfoil hat emoji?)

 

 

💡 I forgot about the shareholders! 🤦‍♂️

[BobD]

1 hour ago, Dave P said:

Yes, it appears that some are, but also that some are not.

 

Quiet periods happen.

In February I had my first blank month in 5 years, then had an above average March, an average April and a best Month ever in May in number of sales and have a good start to June.

[KFisher]

2 hours ago, Dave P said:

Yes, it appears that some are, but also that some are not.

 

Having a very poor month with 1 sale so far. That hasn't happened in years, but I put it down to "just one of those things". Maybe the distraction of the new contract and the issues it's causing internally have somehow effected sales. Doesn't make sense, but I wouldn't put it down to a concerted effort by alamy to manipulate sales or sales reporting. I also stopped uploading images this past month and I've wondered whether there is any connection between continuous uploading and placement in search results.

Edited June 15, 2021 by KFisher
spelling error

[Betty LaRue]

2 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

 

a sale from UK news scheme at start of the month, that has never appeared until month end under current contract. How is that indicative? 

I’m not speaking on that. All I meant was meanings can be overlooked. His statement belongs to him, not me. I just try to give benefit of doubt when I think something said might be taken several ways. We all need to be as kind as we can be, especially in these troubling times. Don’t you think?

[John Mitchell]

2 hours ago, John Morrison said:

Is paranoia the eighth stage of grieving?

 

8. paranoia

9. conspiracy theories

10. insurrection

 

😎

[gardenbush]

59 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

I’m not speaking on that. All I meant was meanings can be overlooked. His statement belongs to him, not me. I just try to give benefit of doubt when I think something said might be taken several ways. We all need to be as kind as we can be, especially in these troubling times. Don’t you think?

Well said you 🙂 Thats the problem with message boards tbh...

[Ed Rooney]

Dave, ups and downs in monthly sales has always been the case with contributors. 

 

I will wait until the final week to decide what I'm going to do, stay or go. The lowering of our % will not be a deciding factor. I am concerned about liability as stated in 5.1.

 

Exclusivity? All my snaps have been exclusive with Alamy since I joined. And I'm not angry with anyone at Alamy; they've always treated me well. When I lost my NYC apartment to a fire in February 2018, Alamy gave me 100% of my sale earnings for the rest of that year. 

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by Ed Rooney

[meanderingemu]

1 hour ago, Betty LaRue said:

I’m not speaking on that. All I meant was meanings can be overlooked. His statement belongs to him, not me. I just try to give benefit of doubt when I think something said might be taken several ways. We all need to be as kind as we can be, especially in these troubling times. Don’t you think?

no problem..  not sure where i didn't give benefit of doubt.  all i mentioned was fact the sale example wasn't really one that fit the conspiracy theory that Alamy is withholding sales.   or are you saying there is a doubt about that and i should give it some benefit?

Edited June 15, 2021 by meanderingemu

[formerly snappyoncalifornia]

7 hours ago, Jan said:

I don't understand the change at all but that can be caused by the language (i'm dutch). I don't have any exclusive images at Alamy. Now I have a blue model. What will that be when I don't change anything? All the changes in the past years weren't any advantage for the photographers at all. Is this another one?

Your income is being cut by 20% minimum. If Alamy get sued for any reason by ANYONE because of one of your images you must pay the legal fees. If Alamy loses the case YOU must pay the damages. Got it?

 

Uw inkomen wordt met minimaal 20% verlaagd. Als Alamy om welke reden dan ook door IEDEREEN wordt aangeklaagd vanwege een van uw afbeeldingen, moet u de juridische kosten betalen. Als Alamy de zaak verliest, moet JIJ de schadevergoeding betalen. Begrepen?

Edited June 15, 2021 by formerly snappyoncalifornia

[formerly snappyoncalifornia]

11 hours ago, spacecadet said:

...and under English law, which governs the contract, unfair terms are unenforceable. There's also precedent that a term is unfair if it imposes uninsurable obligations on any party. One hopes, and it is no more than a hope, that Alamy would not start a case in those circumstances, although the fact that their lawyers have written in a potentially unfair term is unhelpful.

My point was that you expressed a willingness to sue, which isn't an attitude prevalent here.

I expressed a willingness to counter sue, there is a world of difference.  The point being if Alamy took an action against me by counter suing I would have some leverage to come to an agreement with them for both parties to drop their respective cases, thus I wouldn't be financially harmed. This attitude is called not being a victim.

[John Mitchell]

I'm not into conspiracy theories, but I've had eight sales so far this month, which is good, but they are all under $10. 😯

[Sally]

1 hour ago, John Mitchell said:

I'm not into conspiracy theories, but I've had eight sales so far this month, which is good, but they are all under $10. 😯

Agree, no conspiracies, my license sales are as per usual this month and not all small ones. What I am annoyed about are corrections to past licenses and unreported licenses either for images I know have already been used or unreported news licenses that ought to have been reported by now that may or may not be reported before the contract change.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Sally

[Bill Kuta]

1 hour ago, John Mitchell said:

I'm not into conspiracy theories, but I've had eight sales so far this month, which is good, but they are all under $10. 😯

No conspiracy, just a harbinger

[meanderingemu]

21 minutes ago, Sally said:

Agree, no conspiracies, my license sales are as per usual this month and not all small ones. What I am annoyed about are corrections to past licenses and unreported licenses either for images I know have already been used or unreported news licenses that ought to have been reported by now that may or may not be reported before the contract change.

i agree, but this was always a problem with Alamy.  Sales date should be based on date of usage, not when client finally decides to report it.   

[Betty LaRue]

3 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

no problem..  not sure where i didn't give benefit of doubt.  all i mentioned was fact the sale example wasn't really one that fit the conspiracy theory that Alamy is withholding sales.   or are you saying there is a doubt about that and i should give it some benefit?

Ah, well, let’s stop it there. Perhaps Dave didn’t understand how the newspapers work. I really don’t much, either. I think I probably would have expected a license to be reported also, if I’d known the image was in print. Realize not all of us, especially people like me who almost never have a newspaper license, (so we don’t pay attention to those threads) know how they report and pay.  I’ve had a couple of sales to UK newspapers, but never saw the images in print and didn’t know how late they paid. The sale just showed up on my page like all others.
I kind of think tempers are short with all that’s been going on here.

BTW, I only made my first sale of the month yesterday! 😁

Edited June 15, 2021 by Betty LaRue

[John Mitchell]

2 hours ago, Bill Kuta said:

No conspiracy, just a harbinger

 

I sure hope not. Actually, I was wrong. I overlooked a mid-$$ license in the mix. Still, I'm not used to seeing quite so many small amounts coming in one after another. Better than nothing, of course.

Edited June 16, 2021 by John Mitchell

[John Mitchell]

deleted

Edited June 16, 2021 by John Mitchell

[Ollie]

Old story, new confirmation:  Reviewed my insurance coverage today with a major American insurer, which I've been with for several years.  Excluded from coverage is "Personal and advertising injury...(4) For which the insured [that's me] has assumed liability in a contract or agreement."  In other words, if Alamy's contract requires me [as it does] to indemnify them for any legal expenses resulting from some end-user using one of my images in an offensive way, or from Alamy pursuing some suspected infringement which turns out to be legitimate, my insurance won't cover me for the error committed by Alamy, an Alamy distributor, or an end-user.  Makes it hard to sign the Alamy contract.

[John Mitchell]

28 minutes ago, Ollie said:

Old story, new confirmation:  Reviewed my insurance coverage today with a major American insurer, which I've been with for several years.  Excluded from coverage is "Personal and advertising injury...(4) For which the insured [that's me] has assumed liability in a contract or agreement."  In other words, if Alamy's contract requires me [as it does] to indemnify them for any legal expenses resulting from some end-user using one of my images in an offensive way, or from Alamy pursuing some suspected infringement which turns out to be legitimate, my insurance won't cover me for the error committed by Alamy, an Alamy distributor, or an end-user.  Makes it hard to sign the Alamy contract.

 

Thanks for the update. That makes sense form the insurance company's POV. I've not been planning to leave. However, hearing stuff like this certainly does give me second thoughts, especially without some badly needed clarification from Alamy, which doesn't seem to be forthcoming (unless I've missed something).

[Taina]

7 hours ago, Bill Kuta said:

No conspiracy, just a harbinger

 

Thought the same thing. Very small sales in June here, too.

[Sally]

7 hours ago, Paul J said:

Plus I wonder how many go unreported and missed, due to Alamy's lack of following up of downloads.

Lots go unreported. I regularly do an online search and Copytrack throws up uses. It’s a regular part of my workload to keep track of uses and compare to what is invoiced. And it’s a regular part of my workflow to report unreported uses to Alamy.

[Joseph Clemson]

6 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Thanks for the update. That makes sense form the insurance company's POV. I've not been planning to leave. However, hearing stuff like this certainly does give me second thoughts, especially without some badly needed clarification from Alamy, which doesn't seem to be forthcoming (unless I've missed something).

 

I don't think you've missed anything, John. Remaining with Alamy increasingly looks like an impossibility for small contributors unless one is going to rely on crossing one's fingers and whistling in the dark. I was greatly struck by what formerlysnaponcalifornia posted when another contributor posted a request for clarity last night:

"Your income is being cut by 20% minimum. If Alamy get sued for any reason by ANYONE because of one of your images you must pay the legal fees. If Alamy loses the case YOU must pay the damages. Got it?"

That seems to put it in a nutshell, and a scary nutshell at that.

I'm still exploring professional indemnity insurance options but am feeling more and more gloomy about being able to continue here. Alamy's silence in the face of reported account terminations is telling. I don't feel at all wanted. 😟

[Cal]

14 hours ago, formerly snappyoncalifornia said:

If Alamy get sued for any reason by ANYONE because of one of your images you must pay the legal fees. If Alamy loses the case YOU must pay the damages. Got it?

 

if @Alamy could confirm for certain whether this is an accurate "plain English translation" that would be great.