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Contract Change 2021 - Official thread


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4 hours ago, Thyrsis said:

This forum started in April 2013 I think. It took over from the very successful AlamyPro forum on Yahoo which was run independently from Alamy. That’s where the ‘images found’ thread originally started and the ‘BHZ’ game. Quite a lot of folk here were on that forum. There was another forum before that too but I can't remember the name! 

 

My first post on this forum was on April 26, 2013, which I reckon is pretty close to the start date. 

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I have carefully and slowly read this thread through several days…it is so long and increased every days. Took me so long!

About the changes in contract, as everyone stated here. My conclusion: very bad move, Alamy.
Change in commision structure is unfair, vaguely and abstractly explained and totally unjustified. Tiers are ridicoulusly hilarious. New and modified contract clauses leaves us in a greater and total indefension.
In my opinion, Alamy is telling us that they don’t care anymore in their individual contributors. They (we) are a pain in the ass for them. Too much hassle, too much time and effort. They are prefering a buch of agencies, with millions of repeated and not even well keyworded images, but everything automated. Alamy wants to be one more in the big network of agents/distributors/collaborators/affiliates…call it whatever. We, the contributors, are almost nothing in that structure…the last and expendable monkey, and we get the peanuts.
Alamy, you have to understand that you are loosing your real “core”, your contributors, the ones that took you here. The ones that have worked hard all this years. The ones that built this community. You should have motivated them, valued them, talked to them, not exploiting them as you are doing right now. They have lost the faith in you. And that is so hard to recover. They will leave, as they are doing right now, silently and sad. Others will came...but they will not be implied, will felt as cows and will left too. And you will sink and became and old memory, as it has happened many times before.

Best luck to everybody, my forum colleagues and Alamy staff.

 

 

P.D. By the way, CR email (contributors@alamy.com) mailbox is full, and it can't receive new messages. First time I have seen that. Too many contributors claiming, I suppose :(
 

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53 minutes ago, shearwater said:

Alamy, you have to understand that you are loosing your real “core”, your contributors, the ones that took you here. The ones that have worked hard all this years. The ones that built this community. You should have motivated them, valued them, talked to them, not exploiting them as you are doing right now. They have lost the faith in you.

PA won't see it that way.

They bought a 'product' and now want to wring all they can from their investment, while minimising any risks or liabilities they might incur.

It's "just business".

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45 minutes ago, Cryptoprocta said:

PA won't see it that way.

They bought a 'product' and now want to wring all they can from their investment, while minimising any risks or liabilities they might incur.

It's "just business".

 

Exactly. Alamy won't sink or disappear they are being absorbed.  (Or assimilated like the Borg).

 

Allan

 

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2 hours ago, hotbrightsky said:

 

Which is why unions exist. NUJ in the UK in particular.

 

The US doesn't have them the way they used to (there's a law now that a new union for gig workers in computer fields can't strike).  


 

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I've been both sad and angry over this. 

 

For me, the question was initially whether trying to make money from photography would ruin a life long hobby.  Up until this week, it probably helped me be a better photographer.   Amateur or pro, that's not a bad thing.

 

 I love documenting this small provincial capital, the daily life, the occasional drama.   The "Made in Jinotega" photos helped me understand the place where I live.

 

Most of the world knows about Nicaragua when things are going badly.   Alamy's Nicaraguan photos are mostly Granada and San Juan del Sur for tourism, volunteers coming in to Do Good (it's an industry), and the 1980s and other political tragedies.   (I'm not a fan of tourism -- and my area tends to find that coffee growing works better than depending on vacation fads in the developed world -- coffee is addicting).

 

So setting up a portfolio with Alamy wasn't a bad thing to have done for four and a half years.

 

Maybe I should use a different medium to work in.   Or take photographs and not worry about what I'm going to do with them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Regarding the move of liabilities to the photographer: 

It is usually the job of the agency to check if a photograph has all releases/has limited selling options, they should have specialists to identify any legal issues, they need to inspect what we deliver. Common phenomen is that Microstock agencies reject pics if logos are not removed. That is, beside hosting & marketing, why they take a share of 60%.

Alamy struggles to do its job - giving High Res for nothing (presentations), accepting tons of s..t pics, accepting obvious wrong/spammed keywords, mediocre search algorythm.... a lot options to improve customer experience.

Changing a contract will not raise the quality what Alamy offers.

 

My current plan: mail contributor service to set all pics to: exclusive to Alamy = N, editorial only.  I was carefully in assigning correct metadata, but have to limit the risk.

And collect my better future shots in order to have sufficient material to apply elsewhere, luckily still some options exist. If by whatever means (less sales or changed levels) my share is reduced to 20% I'll quit.

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3 hours ago, Cryptoprocta said:

I think there was an official Alamy forum before 2013, but not in this 'home', I think it was on the main Alamy server, then they were split, so that the forum is now separate from the main Alamy site. The old one may be gone completely (?)

 

I wonder if the split was when Alamy moved development and operations to Kerala:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technopark,_Trivandrum

 

I remember when the forum was moved off to another server hosted in the UK. 

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60-80% cut from photographers with small revenue, like me? And people complain about Apple taking 30% from the developers on App Store. At least Apple changed their cut to 15% for small developers. Here Alamy is doing exact the opposite, increasing their cut from 60% to 80% for hobby photographers. 80% vs 15% says a lot about the company.

 

This is exactly why I feel more discouraged each year from uploading photos. All the hard work just to give 80% of it to Alamy? No thanks! You don't get much help either. I have an image that was published 4 months earlier than the sale date but Alamy says they can't backdate such sales. Now it's been 6 months after the 5-year license period and the image is still online without renewal. You do also get paid months after the sale. Recently I had to report an image myself because it didn't even show in the sales report after 6 months. Contributors have to do all this work chasing their images and revenues for what? A couple of dollars for an image used for 5 years. I think I will have more luck becoming a tech youtuber than wasting my time as a contributor.

Edited by Homy
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3 hours ago, MDM said:

 

My first post on this forum was on April 26, 2013, which I reckon is pretty close to the start date. 

 

Alamy had a forum well before that - I have an email about the forum (from MS....remember them) in January 2009 and I think it had been going some time previously.

 

The previous incarnation was interesting to say the least....

Edited by GeoffK
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22 minutes ago, GeoffK said:

 

Alamy had a forum well before that - I have an email about the forum (from MS....remember them) in January 2009 and I think it had been going some time previously.

 

The previous incarnation was interesting to say the least....

The first Alamy forum started in 2007. You can still access it via the wayback machine if you go to an Alamy page from around that time and click on the forum link....interesting reading!!

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34 minutes ago, GeoffK said:

 

Alamy had a forum well before that - I have an email about the forum (from MS....remember them) in January 2009 and I think it had been going some time previously.

 

The previous incarnation was interesting to say the least....

 

Yes I was on that for a short time. I think I first posted there in 2012. 

 

I'm just watching the footie. Great battle between Spurs and Arsenal for 7th place and entry to the Europa Conference. 😎

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In the midst of all the doom and gloom on this thread can I attempt to add a little levity to matters.

I have looked at Alamy's three levels for payment and could I suggest new descriptions for these levels?

Tier 1 "Platinum" should become "Pie in the Sky".

Tier two 2 " Gold" should be "Pyrite".

And Tier 3 " Silver" becomes "Any old Iron".

Any other suggestions welcome.

Edited by Stan Pritchard
mistake corrected
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1 hour ago, MizBrown said:

there's a law now that a new union for gig workers in computer fields can't strike

 

I wouldn't call myself a 'gig worker' and I wouldn't categorise photography as a 'computer field'. When I worked at a large US-owned ISP in London our editorial/production department was one of the first to gain NUJ recognition. My membership has long since lapsed however!

Edited by hotbrightsky
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44 minutes ago, Nodvandigtid said:

The agencies, or most of them, will be able to pay for the relevant level of risk mitigation via insurance (professional Indemnity or legal expenses) and in some cases the agency will have the financial resources to more than easily cover it.

 

How much does it cost to form an agency in the UK?   Some of the people with the larger portfolios (over 10K) might want to consider doing that which might allow you collectively to get a better contract with Alamy or to be able to afford insurance against legal expenses, and I believe agencies are allowed to set minimum prices in the new contract.   It worked for a number of photographers from 1947 to the present.

 

Best wishes for the people who did put so much work into these portfolios and to the people with smaller specialized ports who seemed to be making repeat sales with them, whether it's with Alamy or not.

 

 

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2 hours ago, GeoffK said:

 

Alamy had a forum well before that - I have an email about the forum (from MS....remember them) in January 2009 and I think it had been going some time previously.

 

The previous incarnation was interesting to say the least....

You are so right. There was a forum when I joined. A somewhat nasty one, where a few bad apples carrying their tremendous egos in slings started flame wars, and were particularly mean to newbies asking questions. It was this reason Alamy actually shut down the forum for awhile, then reopened leaving out some of the worst offenders, and with warnings to “play nice.”

That’s when this kinder, gentler forum was born, and I began to be an active member in it.

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7 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

You are so right. There was a forum when I joined. A somewhat nasty one, where a few bad apples carrying their tremendous egos in slings started flame wars, and were particularly mean to newbies asking questions. It was this reason Alamy actually shut down the forum for awhile, then reopened leaving out some of the worst offenders, and with warnings to “play nice.”

That’s when this kinder, gentler forum was born, and I began to be an active member in it.

One very sensible thing they did was to link forum user name with portfolio regardless of pseudonym so people were not able to hide. I recall several people leaving at the time (2013) for that reason, some of whom have come back. Anonymity allows people to behave in ways that they would never do face to face.  If social media could do the same, then it might help with trolling and the vile abuse that gets reported.  

Edited by MDM
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I think some people were afraid their images would be copied. Alamy was somewhat more active in controlling us for a while...  and I was trying to campaign against the wretched red arrows. Some people left and I still miss Philippe.😉🤪😝,  Had to add emojis in his memory.

 

Paulette

Edited by NYCat
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2 hours ago, MizBrown said:

 

How much does it cost to form an agency in the UK?   Some of the people with the larger portfolios (over 10K) might want to consider doing that which might allow you collectively to get a better contract with Alamy or to be able to afford insurance against legal expenses, and I believe agencies are allowed to set minimum prices in the new contract.   It worked for a number of photographers from 1947 to the present.

 

Best wishes for the people who did put so much work into these portfolios and to the people with smaller specialized ports who seemed to be making repeat sales with them, whether it's with Alamy or not.

 

 

 

 

Not exactly what you wrote about but on the same tangent.

 

There are obviously huge problems in doing something like this which is why so many attempts at creating a co-op agency have failed. I was involved in the every early stages of one that ended up being called Picade.  I am not even going to try and list the obvious problems relating to differences of opinions, funding, but crucially marketing,

 

A very simple practical problem is that all the platforms such as Photoshelter are for individuals. They do offer an agency option but I guess it is $1000 or month and more.

 

The short cut way of doing it would be to find an established agency that had everything in place and could do the marketing and selling and which wanted a large input of new images. But as with all of these ideas it soon hits the wall because of the level of pricing that prevails for most imagery. 

 

I don't think that portfolio size is what matters, more the niche, specialist quality - and for that there are agencies that already exist but they are choosy.

 

Let's not forget that Alamy and the other mega portals have wiped out a very large number of small specialist agencies. Very little remains and for good reason - the same fundamental reason that really limits the idea of a photographer start-up agency.

Edited by geogphotos
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8 minutes ago, NYCat said:

I think some people were afraid their images would be copied. Alamy was somewhat more active in controlling us for a while...  and I was trying to campaign against the wretched red arrows. Some people left and I still miss Philippe.

 

Paulette

 

I have emailed you.

Edited by Martin P Wilson
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