Contract Change 2021 - Official thread

[BidC]

5 minutes ago, Foreign Export said:

not according to the Alamy contract - no 

 

But would that hold water in a court of law - you buy toothpaste to use as glue .. (?)  Not the toothpaste firm's problem.

[MizBrown]

13 minutes ago, BidC said:

 

If a client misses a photo, are they not the ones who are making themselves liable? 

 

Tell me, if you were outraged to find yourself as a vegan promoting the pork industry, how much easier is it to find the photographer rather than the ad agency or the advertiser's main office.   Did the client ask about releases or trust that the ad agency had them.    Clients hire ad agencies who find photographs.

[BidC]

44 minutes ago, Paul J said:

I had a reply to my exit email questions. 

 

- Customers can licence images 2 years after the deletion date. All of your images will be taken off sale on the 30th June and no new customers can download them. 

- Once your account has been closed, you will receive any cleared funds in the following payment run. 

 

Why does your mini-profile (to the left of the text) say -60 (in red ?) (Have you not been behaving ?  )

Edited May 24, 2021 by BidC

[meanderingemu]

1 minute ago, BidC said:

 

But would that hold water in a court of law - you buy toothpaste to use as glue .. (?)  Not the toothpaste firm's problem.

 

 

no it won't, and nowhere does the contract say we would be liable.  What the contract says is we are responsible for Alamy's defence cost if they get named in the suit, and that they take no responsibility for selling to the client. 

[Foreign Export]

3 minutes ago, BidC said:

 

But would that hold water in a court of law - you buy toothpaste to use as glue .. (?)  Not the toothpaste firm's problem.

 

Perhaps read this thread from the beginning - all of this has been covered

[BidC]

2 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

 

Tell me, if you were outraged to find yourself as a vegan promoting the pork industry, how much easier is it to find the photographer rather than the ad agency or the advertiser's main office.   Did the client ask about releases or trust that the ad agency had them.    Clients hire ad agencies who find photographs.

 

I must be dumb. So the ad agency is at fault, and with the tightening of all legalities these days, would be foolish to use the picture without asking the photographer .. (?).Perhaps a model release should include what usage the model is and isn't happy about. It goes back to the statements about 'free speech', 'hate speech' etc - what is 'defamatory' (other than the obvious.) .. The cancel culture has hit hard it seems. (btw - I'm not disagreeing with you - just teasing out teh absurdities that are cropping up everywhere).

 

Someone mentioned that soon we will only be able to photograph the sky - maybe Luminar will come after you for a possible infringement of its rights to use the sky in a replacement tool (!)

[BidC]

8 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

no it won't, and nowhere does the contract say we would be liable.  What the contract says is we are responsible for Alamy's defence cost if they get named in the suit, and that they take no responsibility for selling to the client. 

 

Yeah - I take your point .... 

[BidC]

7 minutes ago, Foreign Export said:

 

Perhaps read this thread from the beginning - all of this has been covered

 No thanks. But thanks for the offer

[Vitor from Portugal]

I believe that Alamy, has a seller of photography posted here, where they get directly the money from costumers have the legal accountability to check what they are selling and help the clients to found what they need... Otherwise, they will have to contact the photographer about every single sell and inform the use of the photography so the photographer can aprove it or not. That's the way to input the accountability on the photographer. The other way is Alamy only sell by request, and just ban hobby photographers. They just can't get rich and don't care about the "work force" this looks like a joke. Alamy needs to have an insurance for the protection of all the photographers who spend time and a lot of effort to give them photographs. 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Vitor from Portugal

[Russell Watkins]

15 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

 

...<snip> What's not okay is the sense that Alamy wants us to take all legal hits for not just our errors, but any errors they might make or that the client might make or that a distributor might make. 

 

I was including that as a reason for it feeling like constructive dismissal.

[BobD]

13 minutes ago, BidC said:

 

But would that hold water in a court of law - you buy toothpaste to use as glue .. (?)  Not the toothpaste firm's problem.

 Would you want to pay a lawyer to test it in court?

[BidC]

2 minutes ago, Paul J said:

 

I had the cheek to criticise Alamy in a post for slow payments and withholding money for too long, the day before they dropped the bomb. Some read into my post too much, it was nothing more than criticism of Alamy, completely justified. 

 

1 minute ago, BidC said:

 No thanks. But thanks for the offer

 

 Oh dear ... this is all getting a bit too much isn't it ... sorry to hear that.

 

[BidC]

Just now, BobD said:

 Would you want to pay a lawyer to test it in court?

 

I think I've already answered that question ... *next  [Really I am just starting to make my way through all the 'important amendments', so apologies - I have had other more important issues to deal with. Not being cross, just stating a fact ...  ]. 

[Richard Tadman]

3 hours ago, Cryptoprocta said:

I totally agree, but I don't have the time, money or emotional energy to be the test case.

Interestingly, I wondered what Alamy's T&C's are for buyers.
I looked at the blurb relating to usage including RM v RF etc. and noted the following: -

"At this point, you might be wondering why it even matters. Surely, an image is an image. Yes, but you’re not buying the image, you’re buying a licence which serves as formal permission for you to use the image within the restrictions that are set by the licence."
 

This is interesting and relevant because it points out to the buyer that they are buying a licence that obligates them to "use the image within the restrictions that are set by the licence"

It follows therfore that if the buyer abuses the licence restrictions, then they are legally liable. In other words Alamy is holding both seller and buyer to account while simultaneously exempting themselves?

[BidC]

34 minutes ago, Foreign Export said:

 

Perhaps read this thread from the beginning - all of this has been covered

Punishment indeed. No thanks. But thanks for the offer  

[Vitor from Portugal]

The photographer here, he's the only one who don't have full responsibility for the use of the photography, if the photography is not legal by showing a brand with no release or a person, alamy needs to review and just delete those pictures. Or just add more options on the posting board like: Do you submit for political uses? For advertising?.... We can't even select the restrictions. 

[MizBrown]

12 minutes ago, BidC said:

 

I must be dumb. So the ad agency is at fault, and with the tightening of all legalities these days, would be foolish to use the picture without asking the photographer .. (?).Perhaps a model release should include what usage the model is and isn't happy about. It goes back to the statements about 'free speech', 'hate speech' etc - what is 'defamatory' (other than the obvious.) .. The cancel culture has hit hard it seems. (btw - I'm not disagreeing with you - just teasing out teh absurdities that are cropping up everywhere).

 

Someone mentioned that soon we will only be able to photograph the sky - maybe Luminar will come after you for a possible infringement of its rights to use the sky in a replacement tool (!)

 

A decent ad agency will only used released photos, but one of the posters on this giganormous thread said that there was a firm who would get releases.  That's just impossible for people, maybe possible for trade marks (product placement.

 

Basically, if I work with models who sign releases (amateur here), I'm going to explain that I have no control over how their photos will be used other than the release doesn't allow defamatory uses.   Tony and Chelsea Northrup did a video on how their photos of themselves were used.  They grinned and bore it.   What I thought was that released photos brought higher prices, but my released selfie brought my lowest price ever. 

 

You live in the US, don't you?   

[CarlMillerPhotos]

On 18/05/2021 at 13:32, Steve F said:

 

French fishmermen were blockading. Ours wrote a (strongly worded) letter to the government... But let's not go there! 🙃

Here in the US we just say #ThanksObama.

[BidC]

11 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

 

A decent ad agency will only used released photos, but one of the posters on this giganormous thread said that there was a firm who would get releases.  That's just impossible for people, maybe possible for trade marks (product placement.

 

Basically, if I work with models who sign releases (amateur here), I'm going to explain that I have no control over how their photos will be used other than the release doesn't allow defamatory uses.   Tony and Chelsea Northrup did a video on how their photos of themselves were used.  They grinned and bore it.   What I thought was that released photos brought higher prices, but my released selfie brought my lowest price ever. 

 

You live in the US, don't you?   

 Hi there -

 

Thank you for your thoughts. I'm a rookie also. I live in the UK, and am not sure how things compare - I believe we are catching up with the US (if one can say that) as regards legalities and the tying of knots therein ... 

I have marked all my images as editorial from the word go. All exclusive to Alamy. I haven't made any decisions yet, but will probably go through my images and make further culls just in case.

I'm still going through and trying to digest the contract changes and what they may meant to me.

[CarlMillerPhotos]

On 18/05/2021 at 14:02, Gina Kelly said:

My first red arrow, for questioning what will happen with the stockimo commission?? Ok, whatever, really hard to care now.

I agree. I'm starting to feel like, "I've been kicked out of better places than this! MUCH better!!"

[MizBrown]

7 minutes ago, BidC said:

I'm still going through and trying to digest the contract changes and what they may meant to me.

 

If you make $250 or more a year, it's ten percent drop in net over gross.   The idea that we need to be motivated by further financial penalties is another reason I resigned.  If you believe that "the largest room in the world is the room for improvement," and that financial incentives work and so forth, then stay with Alamy. 

[spacecadet]

3 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

ten percent drop in net over gros

Getting 40% instead of 50% is actually a 20% reduction.

I rather doubt the MD is suffering a 20% cut in salary on July 1st.

Edited May 24, 2021 by spacecadet

[BidC]

5 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

 

If you make $250 or more a year, it's ten percent drop in net over gross.   The idea that we need to be motivated by further financial penalties is another reason I resigned.  If you believe that "the largest room in the world is the room for improvement," and that financial incentives work and so forth, then stay with Alamy. 

 

Its the legalities (and what they mean as far as I'm concerned) that I'm trying to digest to be honest. 

[MizBrown]

Just now, spacecadet said:

Getting 40% instead of 50% is actually a 20% reduction.

 

I've never been that good at maths.   How so?

[Robz]

4 hours ago, AndrewP said:

If we’re not sensible about this then we could get to the point where the only thing that’s safe to photograph is the sky.

I used to work for a large investment bank back in the day, one day we had to attend a "diversity training" workshop. When asked what might be an acceptable topic of conversation with colleagues, someone piped up "religion". Everyone laughed and by the end of the day we all knew that the ONLY safe subject was the weather.