Best way to contact Alamy ref a breach of licence terms

[Mike@Meonshore]

Hi All 

 

I have an image which was sold back in 2018 for a 5 year period, "Single placement and design". Obviously I don't know who that sale was to.

 

One of my image tracking service providers has just matched the image to an online company which matches the licence details and is likely the purchaser of the licence above. However, they are using the image multiple times across their website, and on the various country variants .es, .co.uk, .jp etc.

 

Can you advise who in Alamy, or how I should make contact to raise this issue and have them resolve the licence usage breach.

 

Many thanks

Mike.

[Mr Standfast]

Contributors@alamy.com 

 

Also the unauthorised use section of the dashboard.

[Mike@Meonshore]

Have done that - thank you.

[meanderingemu]

27 minutes ago, Mike@Meonshore said:

Have done that - thank you.

 prepare yourself to be told this was acceptable,  ie. part of the agreement between Alamy and the client, they just didn't write it that way. 😭

[Mike@Meonshore]

On 09/06/2021 at 15:02, meanderingemu said:

 prepare yourself to be told this was acceptable,  ie. part of the agreement between Alamy and the client, they just didn't write it that way. 😭

You nailed it..... 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

[meanderingemu]

6 hours ago, Mike@Meonshore said:

You nailed it..... 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

 

for once i hate being right.   But this is clearly the Alamy way, when in doubt side with the client side.

 

1) usage doesn't fit reported usage: "it was a mistake in what we told you"

2) Customer stole image and got caught: "no problem they will just pay regular fees"

 

 

maybe this should be an alarm on the contract wording

 

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by meanderingemu

[Mike@Meonshore]

1 hour ago, meanderingemu said:

 

for once i hate being right.   But this is clearly the Alamy way, when in doubt side with the client side.

 

1) usage doesn't fit reported usage: "it was a mistake in what we told you"

2) Customer stole image and got caught: "no problem they will just pay regular fees"

 

 

maybe this should be an alarm on the contract wording

 

 

 

My policy is that if I identify a stolen image then I get someone else (usually the company that helped me find it) go after them. I'm not getting pocket change for an unauthorised use, and that position pays off - I have made more from identified unauthorised usage than the total of all of my Alamy sales.

Clearly in this respect Alamy needed to check as the initial sale was through them. I'm going to have to stand down my image rights company on this one.

[meanderingemu]

1 hour ago, Mike@Meonshore said:

 

My policy is that if I identify a stolen image then I get someone else (usually the company that helped me find it) go after them. I'm not getting pocket change for an unauthorised use, and that position pays off - I have made more from identified unauthorised usage than the total of all of my Alamy sales.

Clearly in this respect Alamy needed to check as the initial sale was through them. I'm going to have to stand down my image rights company on this one.

 

problem is this would puts us in breach of the new agreement.  Whereas before we were prevented  from contacting "clients", and it was justifiable to say someone who stole is not a client, the new contracts bars us from contacting the "user of the download" regardless if they are a client or not. 

[Mike@Meonshore]

14 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

problem is this would puts us in breach of the new agreement.  Whereas before we were prevented  from contacting "clients", and it was justifiable to say someone who stole is not a client, the new contracts bars us from contacting the "user of the download" regardless if they are a client or not. 

I'll have to have a read of that. 

Would love to see that stand up in court though, especially if the image has been online elsewhere - for example many of my breaches have been directly removed from my blog, or were stolen from the online site that had licenced the image (without their knowledge) and the perpetrator had no knowledge of Alamy. 

[meanderingemu]

4 hours ago, Mike@Meonshore said:

I'll have to have a read of that. 

Would love to see that stand up in court though, especially if the image has been online elsewhere - for example many of my breaches have been directly removed from my blog, or were stolen from the online site that had licenced the image (without their knowledge) and the perpetrator had no knowledge of Alamy. 

 

 

and here lies many of the issues of the new contract.  It appears far reaching with catch all clauses, with little input from Alamy of the reasoning and what they were worried about in first place to require these changes.  

[M.Chapman]

If the new usage appears to be in clear breach of the licence terms originally quoted, then I've found it worth sending Contributor Services a follow up email which quotes the  original licence (as reported in the sales report) and asking them to double check. Sometimes they change their minds.

 

Mark

[Mike@Meonshore]

33 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

If the new usage appears to be in clear breach of the licence terms originally quoted, then I've found it worth sending Contributor Services a follow up email which quotes the  original licence (as reported in the sales report) and asking them to double check. Sometimes they change their minds.

 

Mark

 

Thanks Mark.

 

I did that, it was escalated to the account handler for the purchaser, and still no joy. Just a more detailed description of what they were prepared to accept under "Single placement and design".