>80% discount by alamy on RM normal?

[SLR/LM/SEM 0]

I wonder about the unilateral discounts given by alamy. I only do fully rights managed images, no secondary market, no nothing else. I prefer not to sell an image rather than selling it for pennies on the dollar.

Latest example is an image where alamy calculator gives price of $1070 (editorial print/e-book, unlimited print run, 1 page, worldwide, 10 years), my sales return is $187.50, so that is 82.48% discount! And that's before 50% commission.

 

I've inquired with alamy before, but only get platitudes "we are working hard of getting the most money for our contributors". Sorry, don't buy it. Then there is the line "often real parameters are different form those indicated". Again, don't buy it. There is sufficient fine grain on the calculator and license terms to get a bit closer than >80% discount. 20% wiggle room, fine, but >80%, no way.

 

Has anybody succeeded in either un-doing such a "sale", or getting paid for real? At the very least, then alamy's commission should also be reduced by the discount percentage: instead of 50% commission, 17% of 50% = 8.5% commission.

 

To be sure, this is not an isolated incident, but rather the rule.  iQ sale is whole in-transparent because not all parameters for alamy price calculator are given, so cannot figure out how much I get ripped off.

[David Davies 66]

Unfortunately this is normal nowadays.

I regard the alamy calculator as extremely optomistic, it probably dates back to the pre istock days!

[Niels Quist 595]

That  price calculator hasn't been worth to compare with for long. We are all becoming micro-stockish suppliers over the course of time, unfortunately. The price you got seems well over the average, but of course it will depend on the image and use.

 

Read the contract you entered by joining Alamy:

 

http://www.alamy.com/contributor/contract/default.asp

 

Especially this:

"Alamy has full authority to negotiate all terms of commissions, licences and reproduction rights in the Images including the fee, duration and scope of any licence. You authorise Alamy to agree to any cropping, manipulation, combining and creation of derivative images."

 

PS If you are an agency you may have the opportunity to set your own prices for RF images - if you read the contract further on. But we are, of course, talking about contributers and RM.

Edited September 21, 2015 by Niels Quist

[Brian Yarvin 346]

SLR:

 

When you say "pennies on the dollar," you're clearly implying that some other agency out there is getting you much more money per image use than Alamy is. While I've worked with agencies that get far more volume, Alamy seems to be at least average (if not above it) in sale prices. Where are these agencies? How did you find them?

[Jill Morgan 868]

I'm sure Alamy doesn't like getting only 20% either. They don't sit there saying "let's make less money".  It is the nature of the business these days. Supply and demand, and the supply is millions times larger than the demand.

 

Jill

[Panthera tigris 73]

Compared to my own sales I don't think the rate you got is "bad" its just the calculator, similar to the "Craddock" calculator also, is so out of sync with the current market IMHO. 

 

I am not sure really what purpose the calculators serve if the give such a high price. My presumption is that it would scare away new customers????