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A while ago, I removed the Alamy link from my website, preferring to try and get a better price by licencing images directly. My sales at Alamy suffered a slump, so you can draw your own conclusions from that.

 

Within the last week, I decided to add the link again, just to see what would happen. A couple of days later, up pops a sale for the grand sum of $19.71, see details below.

 

Country: Worldwide
Usage: Personal use
Media: Non-commercial, one time, personal/home use
Start: 28 November 2015
End: 28 November 2020

 

I have contacted member services regarding this sale, as it looks to me like someone wanting a print. I'm pretty sure anyone that sells prints of their work, and me included, would never send out a high-res image for someone to print themselves. Unless of course it was for a decent fee, and took into account that the image could be printed multiple times.

 

My question is, shouldn't this type of use fall under 'Novel use'? Which I opted out of as soon as I had the chance. If it doesn't fall under this use, then there really needs to be some kind of 'opt out'. I didn't sign up with Alamy to sell prints. I can do this myself.

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"My question is, shouldn't this type of use fall under 'Novel use'? Which I opted out of as soon as I had the chance. If it doesn't fall under this use, then there really needs to be some kind of 'opt out'. I didn't sign up with Alamy to sell prints. I can do this myself."

 

 

+1

 

Allan

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Alamy is an agent and the contract authorises it to sell wherever it can at the best price it can get, so it's arguable that you did sign up to sell prints, if that's what this is. if you don't like it, take the images off again.

The other side of the coin is that my best ever sale was for the commercial equivalent, a display print.

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I got an answer back from member services and to be fair, there is the option to add 'personal use' as a restriction in manage images, which I hadn't seen. It will obviously depend on where and how you sell images, but for me anyway, prints make up a significant part of my income and as they are generated through my own website, I'm not prepared to pay Alamy 50% of an amount that is way below what I would charge. The other point you should take into consideration is, how does any agency police how an image is used 'personally' or in their own home? It would be impossible.

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On the other hand, how many threads do we see complaining about infringements etc? In a way, this is good news because someone has done the right thing and put their hand in their pocket and paid to use it.

 

(Before the incoming rounds start flying I agree with the concerns about policing it, multiple prints, galleries using it etc, impacting print sales). 

 

As for the fee, it's more than I've got for my last three newspaper sales, which have had considerably more viewers than a home user.

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A while ago, I removed the Alamy link from my website, preferring to try and get a better price by licencing images directly. My sales at Alamy suffered a slump, so you can draw your own conclusions from that.

 

Within the last week, I decided to add the link again, just to see what would happen. A couple of days later, up pops a sale for the grand sum of $19.71, see details below.

 

Country: Worldwide

Usage: Personal use

Media: Non-commercial, one time, personal/home use

Start: 28 November 2015

End: 28 November 2020

 

I have contacted member services regarding this sale, as it looks to me like someone wanting a print. I'm pretty sure anyone that sells prints of their work, and me included, would never send out a high-res image for someone to print themselves. Unless of course it was for a decent fee, and took into account that the image could be printed multiple times.

 

My question is, shouldn't this type of use fall under 'Novel use'? Which I opted out of as soon as I had the chance. If it doesn't fall under this use, then there really needs to be some kind of 'opt out'. I didn't sign up with Alamy to sell prints. I can do this myself.

 

I had the same thing with one of my images, which as has been mentioned at least they paid.

 

I'd have preferred any prints to come via myself, as I also felt if Alamy send out a full resolution file, how can it be policed? Also I have no idea what size? 

 

Mine was just under $60 for 5

 

Country: United Kingdom

Usage: Indoor display

Media: Shop/restaurant decoration

Industry sector: General business services

Print run: up to 5

Image Size: up to full area

Start: 30 June 2015

End: 30 June 2016

Life of Display

 

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I'd love to see the "personal use" option removed. I don't think it belongs on a stock photo agency website offering images for editorial and commercial uses.

 

Completely agree John. And while I can understand that some may want to sell for 'personal use' I'm guessing many won't. As prices drop, maybe the onus should be on lessening the workload, rather than complicating it. Uses such as these should be explained more clearly and maybe added as a seperate opt in, such as is the case with novel use.

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Perhaps Alamy isn't the best place to have your images that are more suited to 'print' sales.  

 

You could leave your main portfolio with Alamy and continue to promote your prints via your website.

 

My impression is that 'prints' isn't really Alamy's market but how do other members feel about it.

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Perhaps Alamy isn't the best place to have your images that are more suited to 'print' sales.  

 

You could leave your main portfolio with Alamy and continue to promote your prints via your website.

 

My impression is that 'prints' isn't really Alamy's market but how do other members feel about it.

 

Problem is you never know which images might be licensed for personal use. I've had a couple so far and they were images I least expected to be licensed this way.

 

I don't know if the major issue is personal use or the amount Alamy charges. A number of other agencies, like Magnum, have annual print sales but they charge considerably more.

http://store.magnumphotos.com/pages/magnum-prints

 

Print sales could be an interesting marketing tool and a way to highlight photographers if the prints were priced more appropriately.

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Perhaps Alamy isn't the best place to have your images that are more suited to 'print' sales.  

 

You could leave your main portfolio with Alamy and continue to promote your prints via your website.

 

My impression is that 'prints' isn't really Alamy's market but how do other members feel about it.

 

Problem is you never know which images might be licensed for personal use. I've had a couple so far and they were images I least expected to be licensed this way.

 

I don't know if the major issue is personal use or the amount Alamy charges. A number of othr agencies, like Magnum, offer annual print sales but they charge considerably more.

http://store.magnumphotos.com/pages/magnum-prints

 

Exactly!

Also as John Mitchell said, it would probably e best if as a stock agency Alamy didnt offer a printed option, as I said earlier it can't really be monitored  if they receive the file

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With FAA now offering image licensing, the line between prints and stock is becoming further blurred.

I've made more money from my picture sales (not licences) on FAA than I have on licence sales at Alamy, but I wonder how FAA will licence the massive number of straight forward art/photographic copies which proliferate (and sell) on the site?

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Perhaps Alamy isn't the best place to have your images that are more suited to 'print' sales.  

 

You could leave your main portfolio with Alamy and continue to promote your prints via your website.

 

My impression is that 'prints' isn't really Alamy's market but how do other members feel about it.

 

If only it were that easy John. There really isn't any distinction. I do shoot landscapes mainly, which can obviously sell for prints, but they also suit many other uses. You would also be surprised at what people actually buy prints of. I've always found it's best to let the client/customer decide what they want rather than trying to second guess.

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With FAA now offering image licensing, the line between prints and stock is becoming further blurred.

I've made more money from my picture sales (not licences) on FAA than I have on licence sales at Alamy, but I wonder how FAA will licence the massive number of straight forward art/photographic copies which proliferate (and sell) on the site?

 

They're billing it as RF and RM licensing under the name pixels.com, with apologies to Alamy if mentioning that constitutes promoting a competitor.

 

Actually, after waiting more than a week for a reply to a simple question from FAA's support, I decided it isn't the right avenue for print sales for me so I'm not too inclined to promote them.

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If I wanted to purchase a print from a photo that's in the public domain The New York Public Library would charge $50 for a 12x16 print.

The Museum of the City of New York would charge $85 for an 8x10 print. Their prices are higher for larger prints.

Why would Alamy charge a fraction of that -  $25 for my last personal use sale - for a print from a right managed image?

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With FAA now offering image licensing, the line between prints and stock is becoming further blurred.

I've made more money from my picture sales (not licences) on FAA than I have on licence sales at Alamy, but I wonder how FAA will licence the massive number of straight forward art/photographic copies which proliferate (and sell) on the site?

 

They're billing it as RF and RM licensing under the name pixels.com, with apologies to Alamy if mentioning that constitutes promoting a competitor.

 

Actually, after waiting more than a week for a reply to a simple question from FAA's support, I decided it isn't the right avenue for print sales for me so I'm not too inclined to promote them.

 

The pictures certainly do sell there but don't expect customer support, particularly on copyright infringement issues.

 

Also apologies to Alamy, I'm not referring to licence sales at FAA, just POD sales.

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I had one of these this morning also - my second now of this type of low value personal use. Both are images that I would not have marketed as prints on a POD site. There is often a very strong blurring as to what people want as prints and for stock. I have sold the same image on a POD site as I have here for stock - the POD price being far higher. For that reason I absolutely do not want Alamy selling my images for low priced personal use. Commercial prints ok, properly priced is ok but this is unacceptable - unless Alamy are going to start charging a realistic fee for personal use, they need to end this. otherwise they will be contributing to the death of a market where photographers can currently benefit from decent prices.

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If I wanted to purchase a print from a photo that's in the public domain The New York Public Library would charge $50 for a 12x16 print.

The Museum of the City of New York would charge $85 for an 8x10 print. Their prices are higher for larger prints.

Why would Alamy charge a fraction of that -  $25 for my last personal use sale - for a print from a right managed image?

Because Alamy is actually trying to make sales. Print sales aren't the raison d'être of a public library. They have a pricing policy, no doubt dreamed up by a bureaucrat and not a salesman, and probably don't mind whether they make sales or not.

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I tried setting restrictions on personal use for a small number of images to see how it works. I find the wording difficult enough that I wonder if it might decrease editorial sales among less experienced buyers.

There should be a better way to opt out of print sales.

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I find the restrictions process to be unduly complicated. To select editorial only it's necessary to restrict all the other possible uses. It could be one click instead of 21.

Rather than quoting the above statement and debating it, someone here chose instead to give me a negative (which doesn't show because it only negated the previous greenie). Disappointing. Whatever, I figured there might be others who question what I wrote so I'm going to clarify:

 

To use Restrictions, it's necessary to click on the arrow beside the word All under Usage; click on a category, such as Advertising and Promotion; then click Add which brings up the specifics (All Countries, Advertising and promotion, All Medias [sic], All Industries, All Sub-Industries). If you do this for the seven categories other than Editorial, that's 21 clicks. Actually, it's four per category so 28. Either way, I was simply saying that I'd like to have the option of a one-button editorial-only click.

 

To the person who gave me the red arrow, thanks for reminding me that I've been spending too much time on this forum.

Cheers,

Don

 

edit: typo

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