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Contract Change 2021 - Official thread


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Pure greed, I sell a few photos a year but will probably revert to Silver, what is the point of spending untold hours adding photos for 20%. I will certainly be looking to sell my photos elsewhere. 

Edited by Johnba712
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57 minutes ago, Joseph Clemson said:

 

I'm in the process of deleting my (video) portfolio from Shutterstock because they imposed a new commission structure which makes even the new Alamy contract look positively benign. There may be a better world somewhere out there, but I doubt SS or any other microstock agency is part of it.

 

A couple of people in the past suggested that Alamy had too many mediocre photos and should trim back on work that simply wasn't selling.   Dunno.  This forces a decision on what value we have onto us.   Maybe some of us, me included, should get out or go bigger. 

 

Some agencies make their profit from services, not sales -- like paying for server space, evaluations, editorial help, etc.   Alamy has accepted a wide range of contributors without charging them fees during the time I've been with Alamy.

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2 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

 

A couple of people in the past suggested that Alamy had too many mediocre photos and should trim back on work that simply wasn't selling.   Dunno.  This forces a decision on what value we have onto us.   Maybe some of us, me included, should get out or go bigger. 

 

Some agencies make their profit from services, not sales -- like paying for server space, evaluations, editorial help, etc.   Alamy has accepted a wide range of contributors without charging them fees during the time I've been with Alamy.

Pay us shit for commissions AND charge us fees? Don't give them any ideas.

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3 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

 

A couple of people in the past suggested that Alamy had too many mediocre photos and should trim back on work that simply wasn't selling.   Dunno.  This forces a decision on what value we have onto us.   Maybe some of us, me included, should get out or go bigger. 

 

Some agencies make their profit from services, not sales -- like paying for server space, evaluations, editorial help, etc.   Alamy has accepted a wide range of contributors without charging them fees during the time I've been with Alamy.

 

If Alamy starts charging contributors to upload their images to them I will be out immediately.

 

Allan

 

Edited by Allan Bell
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This is not a defence. I'm extremely unhappy about the proposed changes. But to be honest, I've been wondering for a while now how Alamy's business model is even viable anymore when competing with microstock. How can they compete when competitors are racing to the bottom....? 😢

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All of that time we spent fighting for our 50% until we got it with exclusivity, I can see it now. People behind closed doors, rubbing their hands, saying, “We’ll let them think they won for now. Wait until they see our next move...hahahaha!”

 

Also at issue with our permission for Alamy to chase uses...they can recover costs of chasing??? Hmmm. I wonder if a contributor will ever see a $ of recovery? More likely, a clause will be written where they chase, but Alamy charges us for the chase. We get nothing or may be debited for the chase. You all notice the timing of this “benefit to us” was released first.

Then this new contributor contract which makes all of us who were grateful to Alamy for chasing, now feel like if we want our images chased, we must stay exclusive.

From now on, anything Alamy announces for our benefit must be treated with the utmost suspicion.

Fool me once.....

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8 minutes ago, CarlMillerPhotos said:

Pay us shit for commissions AND charge us fees? Don't give them any ideas.

Alamy tried to charge for QC and impose storage fees on every image submitted. That is why I have so few images on file: if they tried it once, they can do it again. Back then they were so small that the photographers could force them to back down. Now Alamy holds all the cards.

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14 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

If Alamy starts charging contributors to upload their images to them I will be out immediately.

When Alamy first started they had 3 different commission rates to choose from (red, green and blue) and one of them paid out a higher royalty in exchange for paying a per-image storage fee of a few cents. I can't remember the exact figures but it was something like 80/20 in the photographers favour.

 

I've found an archive of the page from 2004 and for Alamy Red there was a $2 fee per image uploaded and 10c per month storage fee but the royalty was 85%/15%

https://web.archive.org/web/20040610173518/http://www.alamy.com/royalty-free-images-terms.asp

Edited by AndrewP
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8 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

 

If Alamy starts charging contributors to upload their images to them I will be out immediately.

 

Allan

 

 

Yeah, I can't afford to invest more in something that may not pay off enough to justify doing this and not teaching English on line.

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5 hours ago, Colblimp said:

This will backfire on Alamy spectacularly as everyone will now go non-exclusive.

For me a lot will depend on whether Alamy's infringement chasing team has real teeth. If they are successful at chasing infringements on their exclusive images and they charge infringers a premium (and don't simply grant retrospective licences at normal fees) this could be a useful source of additional revenue and an incentive to keep images exclusive. But....  previous Alamy infringement team chasing hasn't inspired confidence in this respect.

 

Mark

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5 minutes ago, AndrewP said:

When Alamy first started they had 3 different commission rates to choose from (red, green and blue) and one of them paid out a higher royalty in exchange for paying a per-image storage fee of a few cents. I can't remember the exact figures but it was something like 80/20 in the photographers favour.

No. The choice between the three plans was only offered after Alamy tried to impose fees and the contributors revolted.

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Alamy may not lose any sleep if photographers with general stock remove their images or make them non-exclusive, as they may have many alternatives, but I wonder if they would feel the same about those providing specialised images that no one else - or very few others - have?

 

How many pictures of the Eiffel Tower does one agency need? However, some photographers are quite specialised. About a quarter of my stock is in this "specialised" category. No one is shooting these types of images but me, or if they are, they are not doing it to my level or have my access.

 

I've literally had guns pulled on me. I'd rather take my images off the site, than sell them for poor fees. It simply isn't worth the risk, and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

 

(On a side note, I've long wondered if specialist photography should have separate fees. If a magazine buys a photo of Big Ben and a photo of the front line in Afghanistan, for example, surely these should not be sold at the same price?)

 

Edited by Michael Photo
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I've always done quite well on Alamy all things considered. Back when there was a monthly "Top 500" club," I was a regular member (much to my surprise). However, my annual gross income never exceeds $10K (average for the past ten years is around $8K per year), so the $25K threshold is unattainable. I can't help thinking that this new tiered structure is a response in some way to the recent changes at SS, who have have now become leaders in showing other stock agencies what they can get away with. As I see it, the only way that Alamy can now regain the trust of its contributors is to negotiate higher licensing fees. Not allowing distributors to license images at microstock prices would be a good place to start.

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This is the end for me. Alamy is now run by a journalist and look what has happened to journalism. So she is taking it out on photographers by grinding us down to journalistic rates. (i.e: nil) The writing was on the wall as soon as PA took over.

As for content, how dare they judge what might or might not sell? Several years ago I attended a lecture where former Alamy CEO James.... gave an example of a pic. that had made a big sale. £15,000 for a terrible shot of an extremely obscure subject. It made his point very effectively, that you can never tell!

With only a very small portfolio I am sentenced to 20% for life! They are just common thieves.

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2 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

I've always done quite well on Alamy all things considered. Back when there was a monthly "Top 500" club," I was a regular member (much to my surprise). However, my annual gross income never exceeds $10K (average for the past ten years is around $8K per year), so the $25K threshold is unattainable. I can't help thinking that this new tiered structure is a response in some way to the recent changes at SS, who have have now become leaders in showing other stock agencies what they can get away with. As I see it, the only way that Alamy can now regain the trust of its contributors is to negotiate higher licensing fees. Not allowing distributors to license images at microstock prices would be a good place to start.

 

to be honest I can see the reasoning for the lower tier.  There is still a cost to Alamy to review submission, maintain images, opportunity cost of mislabelled off market images etc.. So if you won't bring Alamy a minimal amount of sales you are lower on scale  In fact this has been requested many times in the forum (of course it wasn't linked with a reduction- more a bonus for diamond and platinum level)  In addition giving the first year to prove yourself- new contributor starting at Gold is beyond the competition- would however favour a rolling 12 months over date specific.  

 

That said, the rest falls flat.  99% of the bread and butter individual contributor will be in the Gold level, with as you stated no chance whatsoever of going up to Platinum.

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17 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

For me a lot will depend on whether Alamy's infringement chasing team has real teeth. If they are successful at chasing infringements on their exclusive images and they charge infringers a premium (and don't simply grant retrospective licences at normal fees) this could be a useful source of additional revenue and an incentive to keep images exclusive. But....  previous Alamy infringement team chasing hasn't inspired confidence in this respect.

 

Mark

Have we ever been told how much are Alamy going to give back to the photographers. They don't have a very good track record on these things. Personally I would rather go after the infringers myself . Looking at the new contract that won't be happening anytime soon.

 

What a freckin start to the day!!!! 

 

You would think that someone in Alamy would be smart enough to come up with a way of increasing profit rather than the old and trusted screw the supplier method. Not one of them has a better idea than this??? Lol

 

 

Shergar

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2 minutes ago, Shergar said:

Have we ever been told how much are Alamy going to give back to the photographers. They don't have a very good track record on these things. Personally I would rather go after the infringers myself . Looking at the new contract that won't be happening anytime soon.

 

 

 

 

Shergar

 

 

as per new contract.

 

A percentage, equal to the applicable commission rate for that Content, of all amounts recovered by Alamy in connection with any claims or actions pursuant to clause 16.5 (after first deducting collection fees and reasonable legal expenses incurred by Alamy) will be paid to you

 

 

 

Of course similar to DACS they will not provide what is "collection fees and reasonable legal expenses incurred by Alamy"

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They've also done away with the "audit of its Systems and its allocation of payments due to Contributors on a yearly basis by an independent firm of chartered accountants."

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28 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

to be honest I can see the reasoning for the lower tier.  There is still a cost to Alamy to review submission, maintain images, opportunity cost of mislabelled off market images etc.. So if you won't bring Alamy a minimal amount of sales you are lower on scale  In fact this has been requested many times in the forum (of course it wasn't linked with a reduction- more a bonus for diamond and platinum level)  In addition giving the first year to prove yourself- new contributor starting at Gold is beyond the competition- would however favour a rolling 12 months over date specific.  

 

That said, the rest falls flat.  99% of the bread and butter individual contributor will be in the Gold level, with as you stated no chance whatsoever of going up to Platinum.

 

I can see the reason for the lower "Silver tier" for the reasons that you mentioned. However, the door is now open to other tiers and minimum earnings' thresholds being imposed in the future -- e.g. $10K gross annually  or you drop to the Iridium level.

 
Edited by John Mitchell
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36 minutes ago, Barry Hitchcox said:

This is the end for me. Alamy is now run by a journalist and look what has happened to journalism. So she is taking it out on photographers by grinding us down to journalistic rates. (i.e: nil) The writing was on the wall as soon as PA took over.

As for content, how dare they judge what might or might not sell? Several years ago I attended a lecture where former Alamy CEO James.... gave an example of a pic. that had made a big sale. £15,000 for a terrible shot of an extremely obscure subject. It made his point very effectively, that you can never tell!

With only a very small portfolio I am sentenced to 20% for life! They are just common thieves.

 

I've worked at the other side of things where we did photo and video research projects for clients in publishing, educational publications and other. We used a selection of many varied stocksites for our research, incl Alamy, Getty, Dreamstime, Shutterstock, Corbis (RIP) and so on. All I can say that Alamy had the upper hand because it accepted all pics, even the most mundane and non artistic ones, and this is why we went to Alamy for a lot or images that didn't need to be super fancy of edited. This is what first made me get started on Alamy, you can never tell what kind of image is going to sell.

Edited by Nathaniel Noir
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21 minutes ago, Shergar said:

You would think that someone in Alamy would be smart enough to come up with a way of increasing profit rather than the old and trusted screw the supplier method.

 

You do both - you make the business work smarter not harder and you screw your suppliers. Like this

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9562059/Billionaire-founder-Shutterstock-lists-oceanfront-Hamptons-home-52-million.html

 

Why settle for a $25 million dollar house when you can have a $50 million one.

Edited by Colin Woods
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