Anyone else tired of getting fleeced with the "bulk purchase" discount rate on RM photos? $5 for a 5 year license is a scam.

[Craig Eisenberg]

On the last day of last year, I noticed a new licensing fee / sale for one of my images. The image is under a rights managed license but the sale was for a measly $5.11 USD. I don't see the value in adding more photos to Alamy when they lowball me and I get ripped off like this, just because a buyer is making many other purchases. This is the main reason I have decided to stop uploading images to Alamy. It isn't worth uploading nice photos only to see it get licensed for $0.50 a year. Is there any way to opt-out of these bulk purchase prices?

 

Country: Worldwide Usage: Commercial electronic Media: Website, app and social media Industry sector: Entertainment & Leisure Image Size: Any size Start: 01 December 2020 End: 01 December 2025 Any size; Single placement and design, duration in perpetuity

$ 5.11

[Cal]

I can beat that. There is a certain customer who has so far bought 2 of my images, both for just over $2 a pop (gross - in more ways than one) and are licensed in perpetuity with no end date.

 

The nice thing - if you can call it that - is the sales appear to be reported immediately and are fully credited to me so easy to find online.

[Craig Eisenberg]

How did you find your images? I have had a tough time finding my licensed images lately. Google Image search used to work, but lately it only shows images with similar colors or subjects.

[Cal]

16 hours ago, Craig Eisenberg said:

How did you find your images? I have had a tough time finding my licensed images lately. Google Image search used to work, but lately it only shows images with similar colors or subjects.

 

put this into google:

 

"your name alamy" -alamy.com -shutterstock.com -picfair.com -flickr.com -anyotherwebsite.com

 

the first bit searches for your credit and the alamy reference, the negatives don't include results from those sites. otherwise it will just show all of your stock photos under your name.

 

it only finds alamy content used in the public domain (such as in online news articles) and that are credited to your name. If you've done a live news shoot of a popular subject then just browsing to find articles and looking to see if your photos are there is another way.

[IanDavidson]

23 hours ago, Cal said:

 

put this into google:

 

"your name alamy" -alamy.com -shutterstock.com -picfair.com -flickr.com -anyotherwebsite.com

 

the first bit searches for your credit and the alamy reference, the negatives don't include results from those sites. otherwise it will just show all of your stock photos under your name.

 

it only finds alamy content used in the public domain (such as in online news articles) and that are credited to your name. If you've done a live news shoot of a popular subject then just browsing to find articles and looking to see if your photos are there is another way.

Cal, that is exactly what I use on a daily basis.  One other approach is to use a reverse image search on any photos zoomed.  Google images works OK.  Alternative, as a news photographer I use “Matt Hancock Alamy” -Alamy.com (for example) to see if any of my Matt Hancock pictures have been used.  These techniques don’t always work if the picture is behind a paywall and it does , for some reason, throw up some false negatives.

Edited June 27, 2021 by IanDavidson
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