Alamy Infringement Team - any news?

[geogphotos]

Anybody have experience of the new improved Alamy infringement team reporting payments? 

 

Have you reported any potential infringements - and if so have they been treated successfully?

 

What are the fees like - an improvement on the previous system which seems to be essentially retrospective licensing?

 

At the moment I have labelled all images as non-exclusive so as to pursue infringement myself but am open to persuasion if the Alamy team is making headway.

[Sultanpepa]

Has anyone licensed an image to https://www.nytimespost.com/ through Alamy and received payment. I had a news image show up there but looks like has been lifted from the Sun. I'm not holding out much hope of it being reported but it is early yet. The Alamy form states that they won't follow up on images that have been copied in full from a licensed source Hmm! ☹️

[Phil Robinson]

16 minutes ago, Sultanpepa said:

Has anyone licensed an image to https://www.nytimespost.com/ through Alamy and received payment. I had a news image show up there but looks like has been lifted from the Sun. I'm not holding out much hope of it being reported but it is early yet. The Alamy form states that they won't follow up on images that have been copied in full from a licensed source Hmm! ☹️

Don't get your hopes up. I've had several on there but though the name looks official it's just another regurgitator of news from other places. I don't think you'll see any money for that one.

 

[Sultanpepa]

23 minutes ago, Phil Robinson said:

Don't get your hopes up. I've had several on there but though the name looks official it's just another regurgitator of news from other places. I don't think you'll see any money for that one.

 

 

That's why I asked, I was sure someone would have had dealings with them before. I don't expect anything.

[Allan Bell]

1 hour ago, Phil Robinson said:

Either that has stopped or whoever does it needs to go to Specsavers.

 

Specsavers. NAH!  Boots are better. One up the backside.

 

Allan

 

[shearwater]

20 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

Interesting.  I did follow up with Infringement team, and they said they will issue a licence for an existing client upon settlement,  but someone off the street will have to pay the infringement cost and be asked to delete the image,  if they want a licence also they would need to go through normal process in addition.  So I guess this was the difference

As far as I know, mine was from an existing client. And as the image was editorially published, I suppose Alamy issued a proper license (In perpetuity, by the way).

Regards

[shearwater]

Duplicated. Sorry.

Edited March 8, 2022 by shearwater

[meanderingemu]

1 hour ago, Sultanpepa said:

 

That's why I asked, I was sure someone would have had dealings with them before. I don't expect anything.

considering their contact info are a Gmail address, and a +90 Turkey country code i pretty much assume they were just another that "borrows" from other published sites. 

[Gallery5]

test

 

 

Edited March 8, 2022 by Gallery5

[M.Chapman]

10 minutes ago, Gallery5 said:

https://ibb.co/ncGrFL8

https://ibb.co/ryzyW28

https://ibb.co/j48rB7Q

 

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice and comments. Surprised that so much attention is paid to
1 / black and white photo, but just here I have almost no questions.
2 / The advice to use the archive department is logical, but only applies to old photos. I have sent several hundred archival BW photos to Alami, but sales here are exceptionally rare and discounted.
3/ I was advised to send a photo with an artistic effect to the POD, but I don't know what it is.
4/ In recent months, several of my offspring did not pass QC. I send examples of failures - the reason is under the pictures. Your opinion? Thanks.

 

Posted in wrong thread???

 

Mark

[meanderingemu]

21 hours ago, Phil Robinson said:

I was also told to be sure to report any more unpaid uses I find and they will look into them. I certainly will, but is that really my job? 
Almost time to chase up the front page of the Independent from December that has not yet appeared. .

 

but don't report them too early, Alamy has different unpublished guidelines depending on distribution methods, because you will then be told the request will be ignored and you will have to resubmit again even for 7 days early. 

[aphperspective]

21 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

but don't report them too early, Alamy has different unpublished guidelines depending on distribution methods, because you will then be told the request will be ignored and you will have to resubmit again even for 7 days early. 

Nationals can take well over 3 months before showing so I wouldn't be in any hurry about a December usage just yet.

[meanderingemu]

Just now, aphperspective said:

Nationals can take well over 3 months before showing so I wouldn't be in any hurry about a December usage just yet.

 

the be honest after fee I got from infringement team i would delay as much as possible for reporting to increase chance they can't get away with late reporting with no penalty  😉

[aphperspective]

12 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

the be honest after fee I got from infringement team i would delay as much as possible for reporting to increase chance they can't get away with late reporting with no penalty  😉

Yep the penalty on that 67 cent will be massive,🙄

[meanderingemu]

10 minutes ago, aphperspective said:

Yep the penalty on that 67 cent will be massive,🙄

 

this is why it would be nice for Alamy to give us an update on the results of the infringement team. Considering i got triple digit fee for a licence i would expect to struggle to exceed $ net, but from a non client, it would be nice to get more information if we were partners.  Alamy asked us to accept the latest contract change to support these efforts, but again we get no input back on results.   

[Phil Robinson]

2 hours ago, aphperspective said:

Nationals can take well over 3 months before showing so I wouldn't be in any hurry about a December usage just yet.

deleted

 

Edited March 9, 2022 by Phil Robinson

[meanderingemu]

Procedure question.

 

When you find a potential infringement, do people always you the Report Infringement form, are contact contributor support by e-mail do validate first, especially for an established client?  

[M.Chapman]

If it's over 6 months since publication, without being reported, I use the form.

 

Mark

[meanderingemu]

Infringement Clause.  

 

  So as per the contract section 16.7 I

 

1. Each party will promptly inform the other party of any actual or suspected third party infringement of copyright or any other intellectual property right or third party right, loss of Content, breach of moral rights or any other matter giving rise to threat of proceedings, claims or demands in respect of any of the Content. Alamy, in its sole discretion, may either take action itself against the third party or may notify you that it will not be taking action and you may then do so at your option.

My interpretation of this clause is Alamy has 2 options, and Only 2 Options, Pursue the Infringement OR decline and allow Us to do it ourself.  

 

Why does Alamy think they have a third option, to just retroactively issue a licence, regardless of time period? If client used image without a proper licence, it is infringement. 

[M.Chapman]

1 hour ago, meanderingemu said:

Infringement Clause.  

 

  So as per the contract section 16.7 I

 

1. Each party will promptly inform the other party of any actual or suspected third party infringement of copyright or any other intellectual property right or third party right, loss of Content, breach of moral rights or any other matter giving rise to threat of proceedings, claims or demands in respect of any of the Content. Alamy, in its sole discretion, may either take action itself against the third party or may notify you that it will not be taking action and you may then do so at your option.

My interpretation of this clause is Alamy has 2 options, and Only 2 Options, Pursue the Infringement OR decline and allow Us to do it ourself.  

 

Why does Alamy think they have a third option, to just retroactively issue a licence, regardless of time period? If client used image without a proper licence, it is infringement. 

 

Is there a (legal) definition of what "taking action" means?

Could it cover contacting the infringer and agreeing to issue a retrospective licence? I think that's typically what happens when the infringer is a valued Alamy client. (It's not a good idea to sue valued customers if they occasionally fail to procure a licence). But there is now some evidence that, in other circumstances, Alamy's infringement service is getting better infringement fees. It will be great if they could tell us more about the progress they've made so far. 

 

Mark

[meanderingemu]

16 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

 

Is there a (legal) definition of what "taking action" means?

Could it cover contacting the infringer and agreeing to issue a retrospective licence? I think that's typically what happens when the infringer is a valued Alamy client. (It's not a good idea to sue valued customers if they occasionally fail to procure a licence). But there is now some evidence that, in other circumstances, Alamy's infringement service is getting better infringement fees. It will be great if they could tell us more about the progress they've made so far. 

 

Mark

 

 

Interesting question.  Would be interesting to get a legal view.  

 

As for "not suing valued customers", i don't believe sending an infringement notice is suing.  When my credit card company charges me extra for not paying in time they are not suing me. 

And I do understand that Alamy may want to preserve a relationship by giving the client a break, but that should be on them to pay, not on the contributor.   When a company gives a discount to keep customer happy, do they turn back to the goods provider and say we will pay you less than you are entitled?   

 

I think the big issue is the lack of definition from Alamy in their agreements with image users what constitute Infringement.  Add the more than lax tracking of usage, which results in images being used for significant periods without a licence, which is Infringement by definition. 

 

the other issue, to use Alamy's own terms, is the lack of Transparency in many of these process. 

 

Edited March 15, 2022 by meanderingemu

[meanderingemu]

As expected latest infringement lead to nothing.  Alamy allowed the culprit to just pay now ridiculous fee even though they downloaded the image 14 months ago, had no intention of paying for it and Alamy was letting them do it and made no effort to bill them.   

 

It's funny to me this feels like a much bigger betrayal than the 12 cents fees, which at least is based on a contributor decision to allow Distributor.  This goes against the essence of the partnership, there was no attempt to charge the client for usage, and no impact for the client for trying to get away with it.  Worse i get cheated by the change of contract in between, and the dropping in fees, and i am not sure it respect section 16.7 since Alamy themselves never took actions, which should have lead to me being able to take separate action.  I guess Alamy finally loses benefit of my cooperation.  

  

 

 

[meanderingemu]

13 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

As expected latest infringement lead to nothing.  Alamy allowed the culprit to just pay now ridiculous fee even though they downloaded the image 14 months ago, had no intention of paying for it and Alamy was letting them do it and made no effort to bill them.   

 

It's funny to me this feels like a much bigger betrayal than the 12 cents fees, which at least is based on a contributor decision to allow Distributor.  This goes against the essence of the partnership, there was no attempt to charge the client for usage, and no impact for the client for trying to get away with it.  Worse i get cheated by the change of contract in between, and the dropping in fees, and i am not sure it respect section 16.7 since Alamy themselves never took actions, which should have lead to me being able to take separate action.  I guess Alamy finally loses benefit of my cooperation.  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 i am just reviewing the details of the licence and it looks like it actually infringes on the actual usage if i understand the publication properly.  Not sure why Alamy tolerates this from "preferred" clients 

[Michael Ventura]

I had a very welcomed infringement payout, today, for a misuse that I was not aware of, for low $$$.  My first infringement reported by Alamy and I hope they can pursue many more, we know they are out there! 

[Matt Ashmore]

Like Michael, I had an infringement drop in today too.

[meanderingemu]

46 minutes ago, Michael Ventura said:

I had a very welcomed infringement payout, today, for a misuse that I was not aware of, for low $$$.  My first infringement reported by Alamy and I hope they can pursue many more, we know they are out there! 

 

27 minutes ago, Matt Ashmore said:

Like Michael, I had an infringement drop in today too.

 

 

Curious, was this one that You reported, or one that Alamy found?