Does a poster depicting a person count as a person ?

[Martyn]

I recently borrowed a Nikon DF from a neighbour and did some self portraits to see how the camera performed ( I'm very impressed with the results ! ) and the self portraits were myself standing next to and looking at an election candidates poster on a lamp post ... I've just annotated these and for the question regarding having a model release, I've answered no as I'm assuming that the face on the poster counts as a person ? I've added in the information box that there is a release for me but not the person on the poster ... I presume that a model release would be required for the person on the poster ? !

[Vincent Lowe]

1 hour ago, Martyn said:

I presume that a model release would be required for the person on the poster ? !

 

I'm no expert but I would say no, it's not a person.  But you should select 'Yes' to 'Is there any propery in the image' and 'No' to 'Do you have a signed release...'

[Martyn]

1 hour ago, Vincent Lowe said:

 

I'm no expert but I would say no, it's not a person.  But you should select 'Yes' to 'Is there any propery in the image' and 'No' to 'Do you have a signed release...'

 

Yes, that's what I've done as there are also out of focus houses in the background so best to play safe !

[spacecadet]

The default is no and no, so I haven't filled in those boxes for years.

One assumes that any model in a poster is released.

Edited July 20 by spacecadet

[Harry Harrison]

Alamy do treat images differently depending upon whether you have actually stated that there is no property and no people in the optional tab, or whether you have not done so, even though to the client there is no difference at all in what they see. The only detectable difference is that images where you have declared that there is no property and no people will automatically go into the 'Vital' creative collection, if you haven't done so they always stay in Uncut.  It is I suppose just possible that, should there be an issue, the fact that you have declared that there is no property and no people may haver other ramifications. Who knows.

[Martyn]

I've decided that for now, it's better to err on the cautious side ... there is property, the actual poster and its design along with the houses behind so that's marked as property yes, releases, no. I've also marked it as having two people, myself and the face of the politician on the poster, partly due to the privacy laws where the images were taken and partly because of the Alamy stance on fingers / partial people and even silhouettes being counted as a person ... if they are counted as a person, I have a feeling that the image of a face on a poster may also be ! I have, however, stated that the model release for me is available ... at least this way I'm pretty well covered !

[Gervais Montacute]

Magritte did a painting called Ceci n'est pas une pipe. It's a not a pipe. It's a painting of a pipe.

 

https://navya15036.medium.com/ceci-nest-pas-une-pipe-3805860591f1

Edited July 21 by Gervais Montacute

[Michael Ventura]

If the person, in the poster, is an illustration, then it is property.  If a photograph, it is a person in your photo.  Just my take.

[Martyn]

21 minutes ago, Michael Ventura said:

If the person, in the poster, is an illustration, then it is property.  If a photograph, it is a person in your photo.  Just my take.

 

Pretty much my take as well ... the actual poster and the design of it is property ... the photo of the person is a person !

Had the poster not been a prominent part of the image, then I wouldn't be too concerned about it.

 

Edited July 21 by Martyn
Item added

[spacecadet]

17 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

the fact that you have declared that there is no property and no people may haver other ramifications.

The sales pages for my images say: no releases. I haven't declared anything.

Edited July 21 by spacecadet

[Harry Harrison]

5 hours ago, spacecadet said:

The sales pages for my images say: no releases. I haven't declared anything.

The 'sales pages'? Not sure what you mean, if you mean what the buyer sees below your main image then I have already said that. The buyer sees the same thing whether you fill in the 'Optional' People and Property fields or not. The point I am making is that Alamy treats them differently for reasons I have explained, they have a different status to Alamy depending on whether you have filled in that information or not. I have explained how we know this with respect to the 'Vital' collections but there may be other ways they use this. The clients are told that images in the 'Vital' collection are ready for them to use for whatever purpose, so if there are people or property then they all have releases, and if they don't have releases then they don't have People or Property.  If you haven't actually filled in 'No' for People and/or Property then Alamy clearly don't consider them safe.
 

Note that it is only down to the introduction of the Vital collection that we know this since otherwise the fact was hidden from us, the csv download does not show this different status. I've lost count of how many years it has been since they said they were going to address this, in other words correctly reflect how the database stores this information so that we can deal with it if we want to.

 

I see you have 327 images in Vital with the most recent, of Maldon, taken on 7th January 2017.

Edited July 21 by Harry Harrison

[M.Chapman]

13 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

I see you have 327 images in Vital with the most recent, of Maldon, taken on 7th January 2017.

I can only find a supposedly "Vital" collection containing 500 images (https://www.alamy.com/search/lightbox/4618657.html), let alone if there's one with any of my images in. I'm probably missing something, but the navigation from Alamy's Homepage has become a very confusing mess to me. I wonder if customers feel the same?

 

Mark

 

 

[Harry Harrison]

26 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

I can only find a supposedly "Vital" collection containing 500 images

No, that's just a (confusing) showcase, much like their 'Categories' which aren't the same as our optional 'Categories'. Vital is a 'Creative' Collection promoted from the home page, and from the buyer's point of view a search filter of course. They are being promoted to buyers by Alamy. We probably search in 'All' but once you switch to 'Creative' then the search results are presented according to how many are in Ultimate, Vital, Uncut & Foundation and separate tabs become visible. I think most of us take no notice when we are searching but these Creative Collections were the main new selling point behind the relaunch of the website, I think from memory that was shortly before PA took over, I may be wrong.

https://www.alamy.com/creative/

Edited July 22 by Harry Harrison

[spacecadet]

4 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

most of us take no notice

Thankyou for the explanation and I would be one of the most. As far as I'm aware I haven't actually misrepresented any of my images and have had RM as default since the option was available. I wouldn't even know how to find those 317 images and the only ones I still have as RF are those which have licensed as such so that will have to do.

[Harry Harrison]

32 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

I can only find a supposedly "Vital" collection containing 500 images (https://www.alamy.com/search/lightbox/4618657.html),

In my view providing a link to that lightbox of 500 images from the main Creative page is a lost opportunity, it's a dead end with nothing to suggest that the buyer can search within individual Creative Collections.

[Harry Harrison]

1 minute ago, spacecadet said:

I wouldn't even know how to find those 317 images

Well we certainly can't find them in AIM, not even from the csv which is why I bang on about it from time to time. James A said he would get it looked at, but there are obviously more important things for him to deal with these days. A simple filter option in AIM would work, and a fix to the csv.

Whether it matters in terms of sales is a different topic, I somehow doubt it but I'm not a commercial buyer, Alamy have spent a lot of time and money projecting that it does.

[M.Chapman]

4 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

We probably search in 'All' but once you switch to 'Creative' then the search results are presented according to how many are in Ultimate, Vital, Uncut & Foundation and separate tabs become visible.

Ah, that's where they're hiding.

 

I see the "Uncut" tab appears to reveal the images that are in Creative, but not in Vital, so it looks like it's possible to identify which images might benefit from making changes to the declarations in the optional tab. (e.g the images in uncut with no people or property in). Or have I misunderstood? Not that it's worth making any changes as I'm not convinced being in the "Vital" category has any great benefit, especially as the Uncut filter isn't available in AIM. Uncut seems to be a bit of a misnomer too..

 

Mark

[NYCat]

just out of curiosity I searched "sea otter". My three are among my best images and always land on the first page. They also do so in Vital but there are only two images showing up in Ultimate in the search. One of the two is of seals. The caption is correct but the keywords include sea otter as well as seal. So much for Ultimate being hand-picked special images.

 

Paulette

[Harry Harrison]

50 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

I'm not convinced being in the "Vital" category has any great benefit

Quite, neither am I, I was more interested to discover that they stored a flag recording whether the contributor had entered the information themselves, even though the customer would not know that when viewing the image. Whether or not the contributor has done this I wonder if the buyer is told when they purchase it, another mystery,  perhaps along with how many people the contributor claims are in the picture and whether they think they contain property.

I think it is significant that Alamy don't think that it is safe to include an image in Vital unless the contributor has filled in those two fields, People & Property.

Edited July 22 by Harry Harrison

[Harry Harrison]

6 minutes ago, NYCat said:

So much for Ultimate being hand-picked special images.

I think that the marketing team were given an incredibly free rein when describing the various Creative Collections.  I don't think that the choice for images in Ultimate is automated in any way as Vital seems to be, but I'm not sure how you can hand pick any selection when you have the choice of over 300 million images to choose from, though once you take away Editorial & Archive that's probably halved.

[Harry Harrison]

20 minutes ago, NYCat said:

there are only two images showing up in Ultimate

...but well done for having any in Ultimate!

[NYCat]

1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said:

...but well done for having any in Ultimate!

 

No, not my images. Only two images appear..... neither of them mine and only one is of a sea otter.

 

Paulette

[Harry Harrison]

5 minutes ago, NYCat said:

No, not my images.

Sorry I misunderstood, yes I see that yours are in Vital, and I suppose all natural wildlife pictures, flora and fauna, should/could be also provided the People & Property fields are filled in, Zoos are possibly the exception I guess. I see what you mean about the two that are in Ultimate - you've been robbed!

[NYCat]

41 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Sorry I misunderstood, yes I see that yours are in Vital, and I suppose all natural wildlife pictures, flora and fauna, should/could be also provided the People & Property fields are filled in, Zoos are possibly the exception I guess. I see what you mean about the two that are in Ultimate - you've been robbed!

 

Thanks. The disturbing thing is that potential buyers are also being robbed. I tend to think they eventually realize that Ultimate is not going to give them the best. Let's hope they stick around long enough to see that.

 

Paulette