When is "For Editorial Only" needed?

[JSaunders]

Hi there. I joined Alamy in 2018. When the new contract recently came out I did my best to read all the relevant posts and to understand what it all meant. I took most of my photos off exclusive to Alamy and I also marked any that had any property or people for which I have no release as "for Editorial only," because I thought that I had to do that. I would prefer to not have to mark them that way as I believe it limits sales. Now I have been looking at other ports and it looks like many, if not most, have not marked "editorial only", even if there is property or people with no releases. Can someone explain to me if it would be best practice to mark them editorial only or if it doesn't matter? I thought with the new contract it was safest to do this?? Also, why do some mark their photos not for personal use?

[Cal]

34 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

if it's an indication for Live News Alamy does it automatically, so this seems to be a type of image they feel should have the notice "editorial only"

 

It is nice to have the choice on Alamy though. On another well-known microstock site I submit to the choices are simply commercial use or editorial, with quite strict rules on what falls into each category. It makes submitting stock more difficult, but the lack of grey area is also nice as you know where you stand. Still, I like the ability to choose on Alamy what I limit to editorial and what I don't, which is separate to whether you simply state the property or people within are or aren't released. The editorial rules on Alamy are also quite relaxed - on the aforementioned other site I use they are very strict much like Alamy Live News, you can basically submit anything here as editorial if you want to.

[Cryptoprocta]

2 hours ago, Colblimp said:

They absolutely do.  That said, I get newspaper tiddlers too…

Indeed. PU sales are by no way my lowest value sales. (Price seems to depend on country of sale?)

[gvallee]

3 hours ago, Steve F said:

 

I never saw the point of opting out of PU. If a company is going to be dishonest about the end use, they can buy a presentation license for the same price.

 

Very true Steve, very wise. I realised that when I opted out but psychologically it made me feel a little better to take some action. 

 

Some blatently dishonest PUs just sent me over the edge. I was contacted directly by the Council of the little town I lived in in Hampshire. They said they saw my pix on Alamy, would I like to sell them direct. Not wanting to be bothered, I declined and told them to go through Alamy. Next were 4 PU sales of my village. I reported it to Alamy. What happened next? 2 PU sales were cancelled and the remaining 2 adjusted to real use. From the Council !! Any idea what my Council tax were every month? Nuff said.

 

[Steve F]

5 minutes ago, gvallee said:

 

Very true Steve, very wise. I realised that when I opted out but psychologically it made me feel a little better to take some action. 

 

Some blatently dishonest PUs just sent me over the edge. I was contacted directly by the Council of the little town I lived in in Hampshire. They said they saw my pix on Alamy, would I like to sell them direct. Not wanting to be bothered, I declined and told them to go through Alamy. Next were 4 PU sales of my village. I reported it to Alamy. What happened next? 2 PU sales were cancelled and the remaining 2 adjusted to real use. From the Council !! Any idea what my Council tax were every month? Nuff said.

 

 

I was actually thinking of quoting your specific situation with regard to presentation use!

[gvallee]

Just now, Steve F said:

 

I was actually thinking of quoting your specific situation with regard to presentation use!

 

I know, I can't win. We have asked Alamy to be allowed to opt out of Presentations as well, to no avail.

[meanderingemu]

6 minutes ago, gvallee said:

 

Very true Steve, very wise. I realised that when I opted out but psychologically it made me feel a little better to take some action. 

 

Some blatently dishonest PUs just sent me over the edge. I was contacted directly by the Council of the little town I lived in in Hampshire. They said they saw my pix on Alamy, would I like to sell them direct. Not wanting to be bothered, I declined and told them to go through Alamy. Next were 4 PU sales of my village. I reported it to Alamy. What happened next? 2 PU sales were cancelled and the remaining 2 adjusted to real use. From the Council !! Any idea what my Council tax were every month? Nuff said.

 

 

 

and again a failure from Alamy.  Their is no impact on customers for cheating.  Could you imagine going to a store, changing the price on labels and the only potential risk is if later they find out your fraud you can return the article, or just pay the difference if caught. 

[meanderingemu]

6 hours ago, JSaunders said:

True enough, all things are possible. But if I was buying an image and I had two possibilities in mind and I liked one a little more but it was marked editorial only and I knew I was going to have to write an email or make a phone call, and not 100% sure of the result, and I had another one all ready to purchase, I think I might opt for the second choice, unless the first one was really unique and outstanding. Just saying.

my image was extremely marginal with 4 pages of results that would fit the subject, i also had another one of the same subject without the restriction, so not sure. Don't forget all the other had property no matter what, so the client had work to do to use commercially regardless of annotation.  

[M.Chapman]

8 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

Yes Steve, so would you agree that if you don't have releases then it's not necessary to do so?

 

Whether you have releases or not, the number of people entry is on the optional tab, so I guess it's never "necessary" (as in essential).

Nevertheless, I always fill in the optional info, count the number of people (recognisable or not) and then answer the model release question if it pops up (usually with "No", as I very rarely have model releases).

 

Mark

[Harry Harrison]

6 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

so I guess it's never "necessary"

Yes, I meant 'necessary' in the sense of does it actually achieve anything if you don't have releases. It appears in the filters but then so does 'Location' and that's pretty useless considering it misses out half the globe and only takes its information from the optional 'Location' field. I suspect that, much like primary & secondary categories, also in the optional tab, it was a good idea at the time but actually isn't helpful. 

[M.Chapman]

19 hours ago, JSaunders said:

Can someone explain to me if it would be best practice to mark them editorial only or if it doesn't matter? I thought with the new contract it was safest to do this?? Also, why do some mark their photos not for personal use?

 

I think the Editorial only box was originally added to us to sell images with unreleased property or people as RF - Editorial only.

But, some contributors, including me, have also used the "Editorial only"  to doubly emphasise that RM images containing clearly recognisable people or property (especially 2D artwork) which is/are unreleased should not be used for commercial purposes.

With the recent changes to the contract, I've now gone even further, and have deleted most images like that from my portfolio because of the (IMHO stupid) clause 7.1 in the new contributor contract.

 

7.1 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.

 

I just don't want to risk the hassle of Alamy attempting to "pass the buck" (for mistakes that they or their distributors may make) onto me whilst simultaneously taking over 50% of the sale revenue.

 

Mark

Edited August 3, 2021 by M.Chapman

[spacecadet]

deleted

Edited August 3, 2021 by spacecadet

[John Mitchell]

6 hours ago, Cryptoprocta said:

Indeed. PU sales are by no way my lowest value sales. (Price seems to depend on country of sale?)

 

Same here. My PU/presentation sales tend to be full price (US $19.99) or not far off it, with exceptions of course. Editorial website sales comprise the majority of my "tiddlers." 

 

 

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by John Mitchell

[Ed Rooney]

1 hour ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Same here. My PU/presentation sales tend to be full price (US $19.99) or not far off it, with exceptions of course. Editorial website sales comprise the majority of my "tiddlers." 

 

 

 

 

That's my situation too. 

[spacecadet]

The only images I have marked as "RF editorial" are the very few (about 15) that sold as RF years ago before I learned about licence types and re-annotated everything as RM. It's quite scrupulous of me, considering.

I also have my archival images excluded from PU for some reason- I think it was an experiment- but there are so few I can't really deduce anything from it. After all PUs are not the smallest sales nowadays by quite a margin.

Edited August 4, 2021 by spacecadet

[Harry Harrison]

A bit of a stale thread I know but last week a design agency contacted me directly through my website (how they managed to find it I don't know!) because they wanted to use a picture of mine they found on Alamy in a low distribution brochure but I'd marked it as 'Editorial only'. In fact it was just a picture of a building and so I don't know why I had marked it that way, it could have been a mistake, included inadvertently in AIM, or I was having a paranoid moment. I told them that it was fine for them to use it and took the restriction off anyway.

 

I thought it was very decent of them to track me down and so thanked them for doing so. Sale came through today, mid $$ so not to be sniffed at.

[M.Chapman]

Interesting they tracked you down directly rather than asking Alamy.

 

Mark

[Harry Harrison]

4 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

nteresting they tracked you down directly rather than asking Alamy.

 

Mark

Yes, particularly as it wouldn't have been easy, I haven't exactly spent a lot of time thinking about SEO, it's more of a link to give people if there is a particular reason for them to see something. I suppose as a design agency they might be used to doing that kind of thing.