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On 14/01/2022 at 13:52, Alamy said:

Hi All,

 

Apologies on the radio silence up to this point whilst we investigate what's been happening with these sales via a Chinese distributor. The detail is more complex than it appears and we are still picking through the data to ascertain what’s involved and how it has come to pass.

 

I'd also like to apologise for posting this on what is a Friday afternoon here in the UK. It's never the best time to post replies and I'm aware there will may be suspicions that this is some kind of deliberate tactic of waiting for a quiet period but I can assure you it isn't.

 

I'll be back in touch next week to share more detail of what has happened with this flurry of sales through the Chinese distribution channel.

 

 

week is almost over, so is there another late Friday afternoon post coming? 

 

I understand this might have been a big surprise for Alamy, but maybe just a quick update that you are still trying to gather information. 

Edited by meanderingemu
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19 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

week is almost over, so is there another late Friday afternoon post coming? 

 

I understand this might have been a big surprise for Alamy, but maybe just a quick update that you are still trying to gather information. 

Whose report will come first: Alamy's or Sue Gray's???

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Hi All,

 

The data has been pulled and looked at for the distributor in question and we can confirm they have operated within our agreement. 

 

The images were sourced from the pool of images opted into Chinese distribution and Novel Use. The usage confirmation report included a very small % of images that had opted out or had been deleted in the time between download and use, but the vast majority of images billed remain opted into both. 

 

The images selected have been used as part of a small business / personal template style application where users can quickly create small designs. The novel use pool was used for this as it covers low value / high volume style licence packages and our agreement with this distributor continues to limit them to the novel use pool, although there still may be some additional billing associated with images downloaded whilst opted in, that are now opted out.

 

These deals are done based on the fact that they are additional streams of revenue that allow our reach to grow within the market and gain ground on competitors. 

 

The average licence price we sell for remains a significant indicator as to our approach to pricing, and the fact that it has remained stable over the last 3 or 4 years at $26-$30 in a difficult market shows a level of robustness. Competition is fierce of course and last year saw record levels of contributor registrations and image uploads. The photographers who are growing revenue on Alamy and having continued success are supplying a steady stream of fresh and on-trend content and are seeing year on year growth in earnings. 

 

Future growth opportunities are on the horizon across all areas of our business and we'll share them with you at the earliest opportunity.

 

Best regards

 

James Allsworth

Head of Content

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27 minutes ago, Alamy said:

The images selected have been used as part of a small business / personal template style application where users can quickly create small designs. The novel use pool was used for this as it covers low value / high volume style licence packages and our agreement with this distributor continues to limit them to the novel use pool, although there still may be some additional billing associated with images downloaded whilst opted in, that are now opted out.

 

Hi... I'm not in the Novel Use scheme yet I had more than 80 of these sales. Could you explain how my images are available in the Novel Use pool when they've never been part of the Novel Use scheme since April 2013?!?

 

Edit. Also, I'm quite sure the majority of the sales we're of images that were submitted after April 2013 so would never of been part of it.

Edited by Duncan_Andison
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43 minutes ago, Duncan_Andison said:

 

Hi... I'm not in the Novel Use scheme yet I had more than 80 of these sales. Could you explain how my images are available in the Novel Use pool when they've never been part of the Novel Use scheme since April 2013?!?

 

Edit. Also, I'm quite sure the majority of the sales we're of images that were submitted after April 2013 so would never of been part of it.

 

6 minutes ago, Gabbro said:

"The images were sourced from the pool of images opted into Chinese distribution and Novel Use." -- I have NEVER been in Novel Use, but still got 15 of those sales!

 

Thanks both - I'll ask the team to check these examples and will respond.

 

Best,

 

James A

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17 hours ago, Alamy said:

The average licence price we sell for remains a significant indicator as to our approach to pricing, and the fact that it has remained stable over the last 3 or 4 years at $26-$30 in a difficult market shows a level of robustness. Competition is fierce of course and last year saw record levels of contributor registrations and image uploads. The photographers who are growing revenue on Alamy and having continued success are supplying a steady stream of fresh and on-trend content and are seeing year on year growth in earnings. 

 

 

If average earnings are being maintained (excellent news), why on earth sell images for such a pittance? Shooting oneself in the foot comes to mind.

 

Mark

Edited by M.Chapman
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2 hours ago, Alamy said:

Hi All,

 

The data has been pulled and looked at for the distributor in question and we can confirm they have operated within our agreement. 

 

The images were sourced from the pool of images opted into Chinese distribution and Novel Use. The usage confirmation report included a very small % of images that had opted out or had been deleted in the time between download and use, but the vast majority of images billed remain opted into both. 

Best regards

 

James Allsworth

Head of Content

 

Thanks James. 

 

 

I opted out of Chinese distribution when Alamy opened the opt out with the contract change, so I guess this confirms that a significant number of these sales happened in the first half of the year, and that I guess Alamy is fine with distributor taking over 6 months to report them, and why wouldn't they since they pocketed 20% more in doing so. 

 

This will be even more so this year, where potentially an estimated half the contributors would get 50% drop in what they were owed with timely reporting. 

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3 hours ago, Alamy said:

 

 

These deals are done based on the fact that they are additional streams of revenue that allow our reach to grow within the market and gain ground on competitors. 

 

The average licence price we sell for remains a significant indicator as to our approach to pricing, and the fact that it has remained stable over the last 3 or 4 years at $26-$30 in a difficult market shows a level of robustness. Competition is fierce of course and last year saw record levels of contributor registrations and image uploads. The photographers who are growing revenue on Alamy and having continued success are supplying a steady stream of fresh and on-trend content and are seeing year on year growth in earnings. 

 

Future growth opportunities are on the horizon across all areas of our business and we'll share them with you at the earliest opportunity.

 

Best regards

 

James Allsworth

Head of Content

 

 

 

If the idea is future growth and new opportunities for your contributors, why restrict access to existing one.  Still can't understand being told i  had to fail QC a few times before being given access to Reportage. 

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5 hours ago, Alamy said:

Hi All,

 

The data has been pulled and looked at for the distributor in question and we can confirm they have operated within our agreement. 

 

The images were sourced from the pool of images opted into Chinese distribution and Novel Use. The usage confirmation report included a very small % of images that had opted out or had been deleted in the time between download and use, but the vast majority of images billed remain opted into both. 

 

Hi Alamy/James,

 

I opted out of Novel use in 2008.

I had one photograph made in 2018, sold in these $0.15 gross / $0.4 net at the end of December.

Did the photographs had to be into Chinese Distribution AND Novel Use, or just one of these was enough to be part of these sales?

 

Regards,

Regis

Edited by Regis
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6 hours ago, Alamy said:

Hi All,

 

The data has been pulled and looked at for the distributor in question and we can confirm they have operated within our agreement. 

 

The images were sourced from the pool of images opted into Chinese distribution and Novel Use. The usage confirmation report included a very small % of images that had opted out or had been deleted in the time between download and use, but the vast majority of images billed remain opted into both. 

 

The images selected have been used as part of a small business / personal template style application where users can quickly create small designs. The novel use pool was used for this as it covers low value / high volume style licence packages and our agreement with this distributor continues to limit them to the novel use pool, although there still may be some additional billing associated with images downloaded whilst opted in, that are now opted out.

 

These deals are done based on the fact that they are additional streams of revenue that allow our reach to grow within the market and gain ground on competitors. 

 

The average licence price we sell for remains a significant indicator as to our approach to pricing, and the fact that it has remained stable over the last 3 or 4 years at $26-$30 in a difficult market shows a level of robustness. Competition is fierce of course and last year saw record levels of contributor registrations and image uploads. The photographers who are growing revenue on Alamy and having continued success are supplying a steady stream of fresh and on-trend content and are seeing year on year growth in earnings. 

 

Future growth opportunities are on the horizon across all areas of our business and we'll share them with you at the earliest opportunity.

 

Best regards

 

James Allsworth

Head of Content

 

Can you please tell me how one of my images were sold via this distributor when I have been opted out of ALL distributor sales for over 7 months?

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30 minutes ago, BobD said:

 

Can you please tell me how one of my images were sold via this distributor when I have been opted out of ALL distributor sales for over 7 months?

see my post, seems likely this was a one year dump of sales.  If not we would have had a trickle of posts throughout the year, like for the UK  $0.17.

 

 

of course this would mean Alamy pocketed an extra 20% on All these licences by not applying the pre-July contract. 

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35 minutes ago, BobD said:

My last 4 sales. $1.15, $0.94, $5.42, $0.15.

I am now teetering on the brink of calling it a day.

 

let me take my calculator, assuming 60% commission, hold the 2 remainder, divide by circumference of Neptune, Yep $30 average  😀

 

 

it is getting pretty discouraging.  I have 4 sales now found, not reported yet and i dread the reporting now. 

Edited by meanderingemu
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Hi James, thank you for posting, but can you please explain this:

 

I opted out Novel use in April 2017. Those 16 images that netted me 0.04 were created and uploaded both before and after that date.

 

One image included was interestingly a 2020 remake of a July 2017 photo which I uploaded April 3, 2020. Why was this image in the pool?

 

When I opted out the Novel use scheme, I understood that opting out would remove ALL of my Alamy content from the Novel Use scheme within reasonable time, like a couple of weeks maybe. Now it's soon 5 years. And ALL means each and every photo on my portfolio, past, present, future.

 

Is there a connection between the Distribution scheme and Novel Use? 

 

I'm with distribution (maybe foolishly so) and opting out of it should be possible throughout the year.

Before opting out China I don't feel my work is safe.

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Quote

The data has been pulled and looked at for the distributor in question and we can confirm they have operated within our agreement. 

 

 

Have been thinking about the reply, and this is the part that bothers me the most. I don't think many of us thought there was any fraud involved, so fact it was "within agreement" was not really the highest concern. 

 

I think what many of us reacted to was the impact of said agreement, written by Alamy, with this partner selected by Alamy, and what Alamy's position was going forward. 

 

I guess from the reply I understand that 5 cents commission (60% of the net) is now part of Alamy's business, that mass annual untimely reporting is also contractually stated- contract written by Alamy and this makes me sad.   This is not the first business disagreement I have had with what Alamy seems to have written in the agreements with Distributors, as recently as October contributor service told me the 90 day policy for timely reporting usages does not apply to these agreements and that basic rights management did not keep with RM expectations.

 

I have in my work career written agreements that did not end up as expected, you review and then make decision going forward. I guess this one is just within Alamy's acceptable range.

 

To me this is my take away today.  I had already excluded most Distributors last year-Including China- and will exclude the rest in April.  I understand this is shooting myself in the foot since some of them actually bring in decent Gross amount, and therefore help towards threshold meeting, but I have now lost fate that these agreement are written with any interest in protecting the work of contributors, even beyond the price issue. 

 

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3 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

To me this is my take away today.  I had already excluded most Distributors last year-Including China- and will exclude the rest in April.  I understand this is shooting myself in the foot since some of them actually bring in decent Gross amount, and therefore help towards threshold meeting, but I have now lost fate that these agreement are written with any interest in protecting the work of contributors, even beyond the price issue. 

 

This is the basic problem.

We know that copyright isn't taken very seriously in China.

Many of my found unpaid uses are in China, and Alamy won't pursue, as they know it won't be cost-effective.

Yet they are selling work for peanuts directly into that market.

Where is the sense in that?

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On Twitter:

"Alamy Content Team   @AlamyContent

The place for inspiration, tips & trends. Join our contributor hub and give your passion a platform. Why? Because all photographers deserve to be seen."
 
'Seen', not 'paid for', far less 'properly paid for'. That's a poor rallying call from Alamy Content Team.
We usually don't even get a personal credit for files bought and used.
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14 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

see my post, seems likely this was a one year dump of sales.  If not we would have had a trickle of posts throughout the year, like for the UK  $0.17.

 

 

of course this would mean Alamy pocketed an extra 20% on All these licences by not applying the pre-July contract. 

 

That's probably true but according to Alamy these have been novel use sales, I have been opted out of novel use since day1, so that makes it a double WH-ALAMY.

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