Alamy's responsibility under Section 16.7

[Phil Crean]

5 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

You can take charge of this by marking all your images as non-exclusive and handling infringements yourself. 

 

 

 

 

 

Missing the point! 

Alamy encourage an exclusive situation by checking for infringements on exclusive images.

They are failing to follow the contract when they don't contact the photographer on discovering a suspected infringement.

Phil

[geogphotos]

45 minutes ago, Phil Crean said:

Missing the point! 

Alamy encourage an exclusive situation by checking for infringements on exclusive images.

They are failing to follow the contract when they don't contact the photographer on discovering a suspected infringement.

Phil

 

 

I do understand the point. In my view the situation is a mess because for many years Alamy didn't care about exclusivity, saw no value in it, stated that they knew many photographers had marked exclusivity in error/ deliberately wrongly to get higher commission. For many years they didn't even seem to bother if micro RF was labelled as exclusive RM on Alamy  - they just said that Alamy clients don't care.

 

Then they suddenly change the contract and seem to expect that all the inconsistencies ( that they previously ignored) will have disappeared overnight.

 

I understand that you are urging Alamy to change how the system works and wish you all the best.

 

I am just suggesting an immediate alternative.

Edited August 18, 2022 by geogphotos

[Alamy]

Hi All,

 

Thanks for all your further comments about exclusivity which, along with the issue mentioned on the last post and our update, we are taking as feedback:

 

https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/15867-alamys-unlicensed-usage-agency-got-it-very-wrong/#comment-322272

 

We are reviewing the wording (as well as our processes in tackling infringements), to make sure it is clear for all our contributors, and once we have an update of any changes we will post it on the forum.

 

Thanks

 

Alamy

[geogphotos]

Thanks Alamy for the update - personally looking forward to the clarification especially as I have just requested a spreadsheet of all my images to work through ( Again!) The last time took me 6 months and i lost commission on every Ex sale. 

[Steve Valentia]

Further to my previous post (to which the OP here relates), Alamy locked that thread before giving me a chance to reply to their statement:

"2.3 ...You must notify Alamy prior to any sale of Content on exclusive terms not made via the System."

So, I'm posting it here (and I emailed Alamy with it - and was told it would be passed on to 'the team'):
 

Just to clarify; the sale of this image was not made subsequent to it being contributed to Alamy. It was taken for the client, who then agreed for it to be included in my Alamy portfolio. Therefore, I did not feel that the condition to “notify Alamy prior to any sale of Content on exclusive terms not made via the System." Applied to it.

I also had understood (perhaps erroneously) that the ‘exclusive’ condition referred to images being with other agencies – none of mine are, and have not been for the full 15+ years I have contributed to Alamy. I have now removed all of my images of that client's products (mainly ice cream) from my Alamy collection – which is a pity, as I think they are strong images.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Steve Valentia

[Steve Valentia]

UPDATE: I have just received this from Visual Rights Group...

 

Alamy contact their contributors to ask if they would like to have their images checked for unauthorised uses before they give us authorisation to pursue a case.

 

Please contact Alamy to discuss your concerns.

Really?

My reply:

I can assure you that Alamy did not contact ME in this instance. I am in touch with Alamy regarding this very upsetting issue.

 

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Steve Valentia

[geogphotos]

I have some images checked by Visual Rights. They find matches but do not start any infringement cases until I identify that it is an infringement.

 

This involves checking my 'All Sales'spreadsheet and then sending an email to agencies to double-check.

 

Maybe Alamy has a different set-up with them but from what Steve Valentia says VR are expecting Alamy to check in the same way. The trouble is Alamy have assumed that Exclusive means there is no need to check. 

 

Virtual Rights will not be pleased to be contacting people accusing them of infringements and then having to apologise - unlike Pixsy they don't charge a $200 fine - but they certainly won't like it happening too often. Bad for their rep, and nothing some would like than to bash copyright chasers, even legally.  

 

Everybody loses when an infringement case is started inappropriately - in other words everybody is on the same side in trying to make this work properly.

 

That's what Alamy have already said that they are going to examine

Edited August 18, 2022 by geogphotos

[meanderingemu]

32 minutes ago, Steve Valentia said:

Further to my previous post (to which the OP here relates), Alamy locked that thread before giving me a chance to reply to their statement:

"2.3 ...You must notify Alamy prior to any sale of Content on exclusive terms not made via the System."

So, I'm posting it here (and I emailed Alamy with it - and was told it would be passed on to 'the team'):
 

Just to clarify; the sale of this image was not made subsequent to it being contributed to Alamy. It was taken for the client, who then agreed for it to be included in my Alamy portfolio. Therefore, I did not feel that the condition to “notify Alamy prior to any sale of Content on exclusive terms not made via the System." Applied to it.

I also had understood (perhaps erroneously) that the ‘exclusive’ condition referred to images being with other agencies – none of mine are, and have not been for the full 15+ years I have contributed to Alamy. I have now removed all of my images of that client's products (mainly ice cream) from my Alamy collection – which is a pity, as I think they are strong images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't worry, as per above Alamy is "reviewing the wording"..... and i presume will make the appropriate change to the wording so that they don't breach their own contract, instead of you know abide by it.  

[meanderingemu]

1 hour ago, geogphotos said:

 

 

Everybody loses when an infringement case is started inappropriately - in other words everybody is on the same side in trying to make this work properly.

 

That's what Alamy have already said that they are going to examine

 

 

though i generally agree, i do find worrisome that they are now "reviewing the wording". Alamy was quick to throw section 2.3 in Steve's face, which as discuss didn't even apply, and close the thread for discussion.  This is not the first issue of them not being aware of their own Wording- and i don't blame the front staff, they get thrown a document from Legal which is impractical in real world operation, we saw it when it was introduced.   

"Exclusive" has different definitions in the Contract, AIM and on Comments on this forum by Alamy employees. Which one applies?