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Contract Change 2021 - Official thread


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35 minutes ago, AndrewP said:

Many years ago the Alamy homepage had the same image up for a week rather than the current 24 hours and they once had a photo captioned "Chester Castle" which showed a castle surrounded with fields and open countryside. Chester Castle is within the roman city walls in the city centre so the photo was clearly of somewhere else, it was actually of Beeston Castle which is about 10 miles outside Chester.

I contacted Alamy to tell them of the error and their response was that they had informed the contributor of what I had mentioned but ultimately it was down to the contributor to change the caption 'if they felt it was necessary'.

 

 

that is interesting.  so accuracy is not priority.  Also it seems that it would have fit under contract clauses: 

 

  1. Alamy will have the right to add, amend or delete any Metadata if, in Alamy’s opinion, this would be likely to increase the sales potential for that Content or if it believes the Metadata to be incorrect.

 

or Maybe they think having it mislabelled increases sales potential? 

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8 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Might have been good if they'd mentioned the significance of the 'Editorial only' check-box here. An opportunity missed, or perhaps they don't know themselves.

Yes, that doesn’t help me at all. I still don’t know if I should Mark anything without releases as editorial only eg people on a beach. If they don’t clarify that, I will err on the cautious side and do so. If that restricts sales, they will have to contact me to lift it.

Edited by Sally
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6 minutes ago, Sally said:

Yes, that doesn’t help me at all. I still don’t know if I should Mark anything without releases as editorial only eg people on a beach. If they don’t clarify that, I will err on the cautious side and do so. If that restricts sales, they will have to contact me to lift it.

I haven't done this, and in view of the commission cut, I may tweak tags, but I will not be doing any more free admin work for Alamy's benefit on my existing images ever again.

The last time people did that (re exclusivity) their reward was a kick in the teeth.

Edited by spacecadet
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On 25/05/2021 at 16:11, Hodderauthor said:

But under this new contract, I'm not sure that's enough. Clause 4.1.5 gives Alamy the right to exploit any licence they see fit, effectively, which suggests they won't follow photographer-set restrictions such as Editorial Use Only. Indeed, if you go onto Alamy and select an image you've labelled as "Editorial Use Only" you'll see that Alamy put a banner above the prices saying "Available for Editorial and personal Use Only. Get in touch for commercial uses." To which I want to say, "Er, no! It's editorial use only!"

 

If Alamy can't be trusted to respect photographer-set restrictions, then it's not safe for me to continue with them (especially, if we're liable for everyone else's mistakes).

 

No, I don’t read that clause that way as I said in a previous post, though it could be worded much more clearly. The sentence is “

  1. except for any rights that have previously been licensed or granted in relation to the Content, there is not and will not be during the term of this Contract, be any limitation or restriction on Alamy’s ability to license the Content;”

The highlights state, IMHO, that Alamy can license as they see fit except for the rights a contributor has allowed. They can sell an image for pennies, make it for. 5 or 10 years or forever, but only within the restrictions that you’ve given. 

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Just now, spacecadet said:

I haven't done this, and in view of the commission cut, I may tweak tags, but I will not be doing any more free admin work for Alamy's benefit on my existing images ever again.

I see it as for my benefit, not theirs.

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On 26/05/2021 at 14:54, MizBrown said:

Because really bad photographers, bad writers, bad project directors and a range of other really bad things don't necessarily know how bad they are. 

 

That's not really the point. If you mark bad images as "premium" they won't sell and there is no reward for doing so. On the other hand if you recognise your most valuable work both the photographer and agency benefit. Of course buyers would ultimately decide whether they wished to pay the asking price or not.

 

Perhaps "premium" is not the right term, "full price" might be more appropriate!

Edited by hotbrightsky
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13 minutes ago, Sally said:

If they don’t clarify that, I will err on the cautious side and do so. If that restricts sales, they will have to contact me to lift it.

Yes, to give Alamy credit they do at least do that, I had marked one as 'Editorial only' simply because there were two cyclists coming towards me down a country lane and they were important to the picture. They arranged for the customer to take on any risk, which would have been negligible I suppose, but it was a pleasant exchange and a good sale. They may be doing a lot more of that in the fuure I suppose.

Edited by Harry Harrison
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1 hour ago, Ollie said:

Cliff:  This thread has accumulated many off-topic posts to the point where I wonder if Alamy management is now reading all new posts carefully.  Your questions--especially Numbers 3 and 4--are important enough that they deserve to be submitted directly to Management, i.e. to Emily Shelley and any others whose addresses you might have.  Whether they reply on this thread is less important than that they have reflected on your questions, which are important enough that they should influence Alamy's work in revising their proposed contract.

 

It was sent directly to Ms Shelley - I just took off the top and tail of the letter before posting it here ... 

 

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1 minute ago, hotbrightsky said:

 

That's not really the point. If you mark bad images as "premium" they won't sell and there is no reward for doing so. On the other hand if you recognise your most valuable work both the photographer and agency benefit. Of course buyers would ultimately decide whether they wished to pay the asking price or not.

 

If you're capable of recognizing whether your work is valuable or not is a problem.   I used to read slush and participated in a few amateur writers workshops at one time.   Dropped out of one because people were telling each other that they were doing work as good as any in the US (nope).   What I said is the market place isn't always right, but it's not always wrong either, and PA/Alamy's business is selling or licensing photos to the marketplace.   Maybe allow premium prices and royalties on images that have sold more than five times or to people who have more than <some number> of images that have been licensed more than twice. 

 

 

 

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Sally said:

No, I don’t read that clause that way as I said in a previous post, though it could be worded much more clearly. The sentence is “

  1. except for any rights that have previously been licensed or granted in relation to the Content, there is not and will not be during the term of this Contract, be any limitation or restriction on Alamy’s ability to license the Content;”

The highlights state, IMHO, that Alamy can license as they see fit except for the rights a contributor has allowed. They can sell an image for pennies, make it for. 5 or 10 years or forever, but only within the restrictions that you’ve given. 

 

 

However 7.1

 

  1. Alamy agrees to use its reasonable commercial endeavours to grant Licences in accordance with your instructions. Alamy will not be liable if it (or a Distributor) sells or otherwise makes available an item of Content outside the instructions specified by you.

 

 

 

 

So they can't, but if they do, they will not be liable.  

 

So as many mention it is now a question of trust, how you feel about the "reasonable commercial endeavour". 

 

Seeing some of the info circulating about distributors, that side my trust is gone, and I have finally opted out.    If expectation of respecting which market we excluded are not even reasonable, not sure I can expect much. 

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4 hours ago, Andy G said:

These are my thoughts for what they are worth - If the contributor has liability for content submitted not the publisher then maybe this can be addressed by doing what the other stock libraries do and that is paying someone to look at every image and see if it breaks any laws before allowing it to go on sale rather than spot checking in QC, this leads Alamy to not knowing what images they have on sale on their own systems. Plus Alamy having sufficient indemnity insurance to cover any legal challenges without passing the buck on to the contributor especially as Alamy take a much larger slice of the pie. Also if a contributor can be sued surely so can Alamy for hosting the offending image on their website.

I would rather accept the percentage drop what Alamy have proposed - apart from the silver tier to ensure that they have sufficient indemnity to cover both Alamy and the contributors back.

 

I agree. If Alamy is going to continue down its current laissez-faire path, then they need to insure both themselves and individual contributors like us. As much as I hate to say it, the micros probably have it right by deeming images either  "editorial" or "commercial" before making them available for licensing. It would be almost impossible for Alamy to start doing this now of course given the size of their existing collection. However, one solution might be to create two separate collections -- e.g. "Alamy Editorial" and "Alamy Commercial."

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1 minute ago, John Mitchell said:

 

I agree. If Alamy is going to continue down its current laissez-faire path, then they need to insure both themselves and individual contributors like us. As much as I hate to say it, the micros probably have it right by deeming images either  "editorial" or "commercial" before making them available for licensing. It would be almost impossible for Alamy to start doing this now of course given the size of their existing collection. However, one solution might be to create two separate collections -- e.g. "Alamy Editorial" and "Alamy Commercial."

 

Everything is in a database and is searchable.   Basically, they're trusting the contributors to make it clear that images do or don't have releases, but that tab is marked optional.

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4 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

 

Everything is in a database and is searchable.   Basically, they're trusting the contributors to make it clear that images do or don't have releases, but that tab is marked optional.

 

Exactly. That's what I meant by "laissez-faire path" -- letting us make all the decisions -- i.e. "passing the buck."

 

This seemed like a great idea at one time, but now it seems to be backfiring.

 

 

Edited by John Mitchell
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I know some on here are thinking of checking that 'Editorial only' box for extra safety, whether that's real or notional we're not sure. I wonder if I'm reading too much into it, perhaps it's just a way of checking "Don't sell for advertising and promotion" & "Don't sell for consumer goods" in one click rather then two, I hadn't actually realised that checking both those automatically checked "Editorial only", I didn't know it worked both ways. Still not sure in real terms what extra protection that offers over simply stating that you have no releases which is the default in any case.

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22 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

However 7.1

 

  1. Alamy agrees to use its reasonable commercial endeavours to grant Licences in accordance with your instructions. Alamy will not be liable if it (or a Distributor) sells or otherwise makes available an item of Content outside the instructions specified by you.

 

 

 

 

So they can't, but if they do, they will not be liable.  

 

So as many mention it is now a question of trust, how you feel about the "reasonable commercial endeavour". 

 

Seeing some of the info circulating about distributors, that side my trust is gone, and I have finally opted out.    If expectation of respecting which market we excluded are not even reasonable, not sure I can expect much. 

 

Sounds like gobbledygook to me.

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15 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

I know some on here are thinking of checking that 'Editorial only' box for extra safety, whether that's real or notional we're not sure. I wonder if I'm reading too much into it, perhaps it's just a way of checking "Don't sell for advertising and promotion" & "Don't sell for consumer goods" in one click rather then two, I hadn't actually realised that checking both those automatically checked "Editorial only", I didn't know it worked both ways. Still not sure in real terms what extra protection that offers over simply stating that you have no releases which is the default in any case.

 

Welcome to the club. I'm currently sifting through my images and clicking the "editorial use only" box for more of them. However, it feels like a symbolic gesture more than anything else.

 

 

 

Edited by John Mitchell
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26 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

As much as I hate to say it, the micros probably have it right by deeming images either  "editorial" or "commercial" before making them available for licensing. It would be almost impossible for Alamy to start doing this now of course given the size of their existing collection. However, one solution might be to create two separate collections -- e.g. "Alamy Editorial" and "Alamy Commercial."

 

 

but that system is also flawed, as it puts to onus on a heavy centralise infrastructure to make decisions regardless of context and gives an extremely false sense of security to all parties that does not exist.  At at least one major micro, "editorial" many time means it didn't make it through the perceived more lucrative "commercial" filters.  

 

It is also a significant cost, resulting in higher commission charges.

 

Yes it catches some stuff, but i wouldn't call it a solution in an environment with knowledgeable customers 

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2 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

However 7.1

 

  1. Alamy agrees to use its reasonable commercial endeavours to grant Licences in accordance with your instructions. Alamy will not be liable if it (or a Distributor) sells or otherwise makes available an item of Content outside the instructions specified by you.

 

So they can't, but if they do, they will not be liable. 

I read this clause very clearly as:
The photographer may not sue Alamy for making an error. - That's a very different case.

 

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2 hours ago, Paul J said:

 

Good photo, I assume its in the Scottish edition in print, saw it online. Why not bypass Alamy live and sell direct? Then if you can be bothered, then upload as stock. You'll make 100% of the money and build contacts. 99+% of my income is direct sales. 

 

Thanks Paul. That has been suggested to me before. Not familiar with how to do it, not sure whether I can be bothered with the paperwork. Worth mulling over as the extra work involved in many news shoots is worth more than 40% IMO.

 

It wasn’t actually in the Scottish print version: they had a photographer working for the shoot so were sending out free photos and used one of those, hence I was surprised anything of mine was used at all.

 

Sorry for the diversion...back to the thread.

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1 hour ago, ManfredG said:

I read this clause very clearly as:
The photographer may not sue Alamy for making an error. - That's a very different case.

 

so what are the consequences for not respecting instructions .  if there is none, how is that different.  You can read in another post, currently images are on offer at a distributors even against contributors instructions, and there is no consequences- how is it different, i guess i fail to see the difference in the application.  

Edited by meanderingemu
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The days are passing by and no amendments to the contract yet without any indication from Alamy of when we will see anything unless I missed it. The last response from Alamy just says 'soon'.

As mentioned in this thread, the 45 days notice starts again once (if) it's amended, or not?

Would be good to know what to expect.

Communication: basic good practice in any business.

Edited by Tony ALS
misspelling
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