Jump to content

Contributor contracts - changes


Recommended Posts

Alamy. may I ask. Its still not quite clear. If you licence an image of mine to a newspaper and then people copy it from the newspapers website and use it themselves are you saying that you are going to chase these?

Regards Kevin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alamy. may I ask. Its still not quite clear. If you licence an image of mine to a newspaper and then people copy it from the newspapers website and use it themselves are you saying that you are going to chase these?

Regards Kevin

 

Alamy are doing exactly this for one of my images at the moment which was published in an on-line newspaper and has then appeared in numerous other places. I'll reserve judgement as to whether I'm happy with this. The process is quite slow and I'm wary that the final result will be limited financially as the potential infringers may also be Alamy customers.

 

I hope Alamy will start insisting that, if on-line newspapers want good rates, they have to take measures to make it harder to copy the images in the first place.

 

In the current case being pursued, right clicking on the original Newspaper publication of my image gave access to a higher resolution image with image credit missing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1.    It is absolutely not our intention to prevent photographers from pursuing copyright infringements. If it was, the clause in the contract would state that you can’t pursue any infringements

2.    That said, we have invested money and resources in systems and processes to track down infringements that originated from Alamy. (We are working with Pic Scout who are the best in our business at identifying infringements)

3.    We will only chase certain infringements, we can't chase everything, eg, for images that are widely distributed outside of Alamy, then it’s impractical to pursue these. 

4.    We want to help photographers by taking on the responsibility and cost to pursue the infringement if the image began its journey on Alamy. We feel it’s our responsibility and one that we haven’t taken seriously enough in the past.

5.    When it comes to whether the image was sourced from us or not there are varying degrees of certainty that we can have:

  • Is the image exclusive to us? We don’t ask this but we will as part of a chase process and we may routinely ask it as part of the submission process
  • Was it downloaded from us, do we have a record of this?
  • Does the image have an Alamy credit or watermark on it (this would imply it had indirectly come from us, eg google images)

6.    Overall we are taking a cautious and practical approach, we aren't suggesting photographers change any behavior when it comes to their actions against copyright infringement 

 

Cheers

 

Alamy

  1. Excellent. I wonder if you might consider altering Clause 14.3 to more simply reflect this intention? (see 6 below) 
  2. Excellent news
  3. Presumably you simply mean that you won’t provide a general infringement chasing service for images that weren’t sourced from Alamy?
  4. More good news
  5. It would be great to see an "Exclusive to Alamy" check box in Manage images.
  6. If you aren't suggesting photographers change any behaviour with respect to infringements, what’s the intention behind modifying Clause 14.2 to the new 14.3? Could the word “indirectly” be deleted from the new clause, or the meaning of “indirectly” be clarified? Alternatively, can the last sentence finish with “…where the image was directly sourced from Alamy”

It's the "indirectly" term that troubles me the most.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

What about the changes that more or less allow you to nick other photographers' keywords/descriptions, etc.? Much more irritating. I liked the times when the keywords were unrevealed.

I would think that there is an issue relating to enforceability  and practicality here.  How do you prove that appropriate key words were copied or come up with independently? If you have two images of the same subject by different photographers, how do you prove the originality of the keywords - then the big question: shouldn't they have the same keywords? If you can't prove anything or it is impractical to enforce, then better not to have a specific clause. If as a photographer you think that someone is unreasonably profiting by copying your work product (keywords in this case) then you can always take action yourself. I wonder if anyone has ever fallen foul of that one anyway.

 

 

Me too, I liked the times when the keywords were unrevealed. I spend a lot of time on my keywording and especially research. I'm not doing this job for my competitors but just for me. It's business after all. Competition is already fierce enough. I don't like the idea of lazy competitors parasiting on my hard work.

 

We had a discussion about it last year: see here

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

 

I agree. I see that Alamy have answered concerns about pursuing infringers, which is great, but they didn't address the issue of copying keywords, which is now apparently acceptable.  Perhaps it is unenforceable but that doesn't seem a good reason to specifically mention it in the contract changes.

 

Could we know why?

 

Chris

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It reads to me like Alamy don't want us (the plebs) upsetting their customers so they will give them the chance to buy a retrospective license therefore keeping them as customers. They may actually chase infringers but only the ones that will be worth it financially to Alamy with us getting a share of the spoils (possibly 50% of the normal license fee after costs rather than 50% of the infringement which could be higher for flagrancy,etc.).

 

All the smaller ones not worth it will be passed to us to chase but infringers will be able to show $6 sales via Alamy therefore restricting our claims.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I contacted MS asking if a licenced image to a newspaper is then copied as used by someone else are they following those up and the reply was No so its no change there. So other than chasing people who use the image in other terms than the licence granted or copy it with the alamy watermark they will not be chasing them up

 

Regarding contact users of indirect sourcing of images , which I assume the above example is, who knows because MS say they will not follow these up yet 4.12 say we cant contact them

 

I am confused and have asked MS to clarify but I figure I am just going to carry on chasing infringers like I have before because none have been directly sourced from alamy and alamys 1st reply say they are not going to do anything about those

 

Kevin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having just read 4.12 again it says that you cannot contact direct or indirect users regarding the sale or usage but when it comes to contacting them about copyright infringement you can only not contact them if they obtained the image directly from alamy so I guess as I thought, business as usual

 

Kevin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I contacted MS asking if a licenced image to a newspaper is then copied as used by someone else are they following those up and the reply was No so its no change there. So other than chasing people who use the image in other terms than the licence granted or copy it with the alamy watermark they will not be chasing them up

 

Regarding contact users of indirect sourcing of images , which I assume the above example is, who knows because MS say they will not follow these up yet 4.12 say we cant contact them

 

I am confused and have asked MS to clarify but I figure I am just going to carry on chasing infringers like I have before because none have been directly sourced from alamy and alamys 1st reply say they are not going to do anything about those

 

Kevin

 

Seems like Alamy themselves are confused. They are currently chasing other usages of one my images that was copied from an online newspaper site that Alamy had given a licence to. I didn't ask them to do this, they wanted to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having just read 4.12 again it says that you cannot contact direct or indirect users regarding the sale or usage but when it comes to contacting them about copyright infringement you can only not contact them if they obtained the image directly from alamy so I guess as I thought, business as usual

 

Kevin

 

It doesn't say directly...., it just says sourced from Alamy which, given the use of indirectly or directly earlier in the clause raises some ambiguity..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I now have had 2 replies from alamy . 1 says they will not pursue and the other says they will if its only on alamy (exclusive)

Totally confused now

Both replies come from the same MS agent. The only difference in the reply is the word exclusive to alamy

 

Kevin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I now have had 2 replies from alamy . 1 says they will not pursue and the other says they will if its only on alamy (exclusive)

Totally confused now

Both replies come from the same MS agent. The only difference in the reply is the word exclusive to alamy

 

Kevin

 

Thanks - That makes sense. The image they are chasing for me is Alamy exclusive. ie. it isn't for sale anywhere except via Alamy and its distributors.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I want to come back to my question again for a moment, how/ where can I change the price for image? This is interesting and I'm just curious. You say it's nothing new and I have never noticed that option before.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In their opening shot. I'm not sure how EPUK have turned "Alamy is permitted to grant a re-use licence" into forever.

 

"A" means 1, not "perpetual" doesn't it? And isn't that clause, the ability to re-issue a license once, quite common? Pretty sure it's in there with my other libraries. After all, they did the hard work finding the buyer in the first place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In their opening shot. I'm not sure how EPUK have turned "Alamy is permitted to grant a re-use licence" into forever.

 

"A" means 1, not "perpetual" doesn't it? And isn't that clause, the ability to re-issue a license once, quite common? Pretty sure it's in there with my other libraries. After all, they did the hard work finding the buyer in the first place.

 

that 1 could be 'perpetual'. An image licensed 5 years ago will have had an end date, current licensing sometimes has 'in perpetuity' on it (check your images sold summary). So in theory yes A means 1 but it could also mean 1 in perpetuity or one including distribution rights or 1 including x, y, or z prevalent at the time, not necessarily a re-use of the existing licence terms.

The legality of these terms need to be hammered out. For example in the Getty terms sales there are images sold 'for the lifetime of the contract', which contract? Between Getty and the supplier, Getty and the photographer? Its all unclear. Arguably all the 'in perpetuity' licenses granted by Alamy and Getty only apply for as long as the photographer maintains their contract. Getty and Alamy will probably argue that it isnt. Thats why lawyers do well out of wooly 'contracts' and judges are called on to make clear what is fair and unfair (cant have an unfair contract but need to go to court to find out).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

It makes interesting reading. I hope Alamy takes notice and reacts appropriately to the amendments contained therein for the sake of both Alamy and their contributors.

 

Allan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.