"Personal Use" as option when buying an image

[chris warren]

I have asked the question straight to member services, and am disappointed in their replies, I dont think anyone is listening, yet alone understands our problem with such a low price.

 

Hi
I might be slightly late to the party regarding personal use, as I have been away shooting stock.
I would be very grateful if someone who understands the world of professional photography is able to explain to me, what unearth is going on, when you now have a system that allows anyone to pay £10 and have excess to the full size hires image file.
This is most unhelpful to those of us who sell prints, canvas prints, etc as another part of our businesses.
I will be happy to speak to someone on Monday, in the meantime have a good weekend.

 

Reply :

Hello Chris,
 Our price calculator lists the “shop front” pricing. New customers that we don’t interact with invariably come to the site, search, price and license images and pay the shop front prices. Customers we actively go after, contact us about specific needs or key customers with large spends and image requirements may negotiate on price; which always starts with our shop front pricing.
 Some of these customers need to be confident they’re covered to use images for their particular area and we may invoice with the highest print run and largest page size as we’re working with large orders. Actual use is nearly always at a much smaller size and lower print run.
 License details are taken from the price calculator that has set values so it’s not always possible to be 100% specific. Where we can we’ll add clarifications into the additional sales info field.
 If you're not satisfied with the pricing of images for personal use I’d suggest you to restrict them for 'personal use' from your 'Manage images' page.
 Thanks
 Abhishek
Member Services

 

Hi Abhishek
Thank you for your reply,
As to what you are replying to I am not so sure.
I am asking why the selling price for Personal use is so LOW.
I am not the only one asking this, there are 8 pages on the forum asking the same, along with comments and thought as to why we don’t have an opt in / out button available to us, instead of having to place restrictions on all of our images.
I am asking a simple question to which I require a straight answer,
I had hoped that Alamy would have replied to the forum posting by now, -maybe I shall post this correspondence, so that others know what is going on.
Regards

 

Reply :

Hi Chris,
 The reason why the personal use are priced low because they’re licensed for Non-commercial use only ( personal prints, cards and gifts).
 Our sales teams work extremely hard to negotiate on deals with all forms of customers and always try to get the best market value possible for each license.
I’ve now forwarded your comments to our sales team to review it.
 Thanks
 Shiraz

 

Hi
Well I for one am not happy to "sell / licence" one of my images to anyone to allow them to make a large print and maybe a set of card / gifts for any personal use, -even around their own home.
These prints and so called gifts, are products that many of us sell to help our businesses survive.
I regularly sell prints to the general public, and my profit mark up is a lot more than £10, - so why do you think it's only worth £10 (less Alamy fees) and safe to let a hires image file go out without any controls
Pictures are our product that we sell to make a profit, not to give away without controls.
 

 

 

[DDoug]

If Personal Use were determined by Alamy to be a Novel Use, and if the contributor has opted out of Novel Use, then the problem would be solved, no?

[John Mitchell]

Posted in wrong thread. Deleted.

[Arletta]

I just had this "amazing" personal use sale for $14. And... I'm trying to convince myself that it really will be beautiful print/ canvas/ post card/ whatever... for personal use... (?) 

 

 

 

When uploading, I added a note that this is for editorial use only in the description, like I always do.

 

Alamy, could you please kindly tell us what is this license really for, and why it's so cheap?

Thank you!

[chris warren]

I have finally been all the way through my images and placed No Personal use restrictions on them all. 



Guess what crept under the wire in yesterday's sales ? Yep, a Personal Use,    Grrr

[dustydingo]

I have finally been all the way through my images and placed No Personal use restrictions on them all. 





Guess what crept under the wire in yesterday's sales ? Yep, a Personal Use, Grrr

I'm really lost here . . . what does disallowing the selection of "Personal Use" actually achieve?

 

If this is all to prevent someone buying a license for Personal Use but using the image more extensively/commercially . . . so assuming a devious buyer wants to do that, all they have to do now (for one of your images) is buy a "Presentation Only" license (which now appears to be cheaper than Personal Use) and still use the image more extensively/commercially.. . . and then when you restrict the selection of "Presentation Only", they'll just buy the next cheapest option . . . and so on and so on.

 

IF on the other hand it's to avoid the low fee paid for Personal Use, a little wander through one or two other almost perpetual threads will show you that even lower prices abound.

 

dd

[John Mitchell]

Mr. Dingo has a point there. I have eight distributor sales  -- vs. only one personal use license -- so far this month for less than the $14.99 personal use / presentation fee.

[Betty LaRue]

Out of only 3 sales this month, two are personal use.

If the images being sold under that heading were lovely landscapes, iconic old bridges, flowers, etc I maybe could understand someone having a wall print (still way, way underpriced) But the first of mine would be valued for commercial postcards.

The 2nd of mine needs to be part of a story. Other words, editorial. Buyers are gaming the system and it appears Alamy doesn't care, as long as the $$ keep flowing into their coffers.

The faster we, the artists/photographers, run, the behinder we get. (I know that's not proper English, but an old saying).

[Keith Douglas]

It seems to me that there is a legitimate concern that some buyers may be choosing the lowest cost licence and then using the image for another purpose, whether that is deliberate or not. In many cases we don't know who the buyer is and we have no way of policing how an image is actually used. Would we be concerned about "Personal Use" licences if they were more expensive than some of the other options? 

 

Surely the answer to this is for the photographer to be able to set a minimum price for a licence for their image? Any licence options that are lower than that price wouldn't be shown.

Or alternatively, all the options would be visible but at least at the minimum price specified. 

 

The photographer can then make their own judgement, for each image, about how little they are prepared to sell a licence for. 

 

[i'm sure that this has been discussed/suggested many times before]

[Allan Bell]

From the foregoing reactions/comments from a lot of contributors it would appear that Alamy is trying to be the "One place" to come for all customers and it is just not working. If they wish to play in all the playgrounds then they need to think about sectioning their business into editorial, commercial, private/personal and whatever else with appropriate value licences in each section.

 

As mentioned already perhaps they need to team up with a POD provider for personal/private use only with the photographer setting their own prices.

 

Allan

[wiskerke]

If the editorial sales to the poor countries of Sweden and Denmark that I had yesterday had been as high as personal use or presentation use, I would have been more happy.

Today however 3 sales came in, all direct, for much much higher sums. The average is 163! So I am not complaining anymore.

Actually I did not complain yesterday, knowing that when you get a shave, you gotta sit still.

 

Have you all counted what the impact has been on your rolling year's total? And what is hurting that total more: low distribution sales; presentation/personal use sales or losing sales?

On the other side: what has helped your total more: high editorial sales? High distribution sales? Or high commercial sales? Or higher over all volume?

 

In all: Is your rolling year better or worse than last year's total?

Mine is better by about 10% so far.

For the rolling year, go to Summary and look up your total for period 1 year; for last year's total, go to your Dashboard.

Remember the month's not over yet, the rolling year in Summary starts at May 1st.

 

wim

[Alamy]

We do have additional processes in place to follow up on personal use licences. 

 

As with any licence sold, if you have any particular concern then it's always best to let Member Services know who can investigate further on your behalf.

 

Alamy

[John Mitchell]

If the editorial sales to the poor countries of Sweden and Denmark that I had yesterday had been as high as personal use or presentation use, I would have been more happy.

Today however 3 sales came in, all direct, for much much higher sums. The average is 163! So I am not complaining anymore.

Actually I did not complain yesterday, knowing that when you get a shave, you gotta sit still.

 

Have you all counted what the impact has been on your rolling year's total? And what is hurting that total more: low distribution sales; presentation/personal use sales or losing sales?

On the other side: what has helped your total more: high editorial sales? High distribution sales? Or high commercial sales? Or higher over all volume?

 

In all: Is your rolling year better or worse than last year's total?

Mine is better by about 10% so far.

For the rolling year, go to Summary and look up your total for period 1 year; for last year's total, go to your Dashboard.

Remember the month's not over yet, the rolling year in Summary starts at May 1st.

 

wim

 

My "rolling year" is up about 12% over lat year's total, which doesn't surprise me because 2015 was an especially bad year for me due mainly to a major decline in sales numbers..

 

However, compared to my total for 2014, which was my best year on Alamy, my rolling year is down 45%.

[John Mitchell]

 

 

If the editorial sales to the poor countries of Sweden and Denmark that I had yesterday had been as high as personal use or presentation use, I would have been more happy.

Today however 3 sales came in, all direct, for much much higher sums. The average is 163! So I am not complaining anymore.

Actually I did not complain yesterday, knowing that when you get a shave, you gotta sit still.

 

Have you all counted what the impact has been on your rolling year's total? And what is hurting that total more: low distribution sales; presentation/personal use sales or losing sales?

On the other side: what has helped your total more: high editorial sales? High distribution sales? Or high commercial sales? Or higher over all volume?

 

In all: Is your rolling year better or worse than last year's total?

Mine is better by about 10% so far.

For the rolling year, go to Summary and look up your total for period 1 year; for last year's total, go to your Dashboard.

Remember the month's not over yet, the rolling year in Summary starts at May 1st.

 

wim

 

My "rolling year" is up about 12% over lat year's total, which doesn't surprise me because 2015 was an especially bad year for me due mainly to declining sales numbers..

 

However, compared to my total for 2014, which was my best year on Alamy, my rolling year is down 45%.

 

 

..... and how many images have you added since 2014? 

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

 

Not sure, probably about 1500  -- which was lot for me -- since the end of 2014. Adding more images certainly hasn't been the easy road to riches that it is often touted to be.

 

 

 

[John Mitchell]

 

 

 

 

If the editorial sales to the poor countries of Sweden and Denmark that I had yesterday had been as high as personal use or presentation use, I would have been more happy.

Today however 3 sales came in, all direct, for much much higher sums. The average is 163! So I am not complaining anymore.

Actually I did not complain yesterday, knowing that when you get a shave, you gotta sit still.

 

Have you all counted what the impact has been on your rolling year's total? And what is hurting that total more: low distribution sales; presentation/personal use sales or losing sales?

On the other side: what has helped your total more: high editorial sales? High distribution sales? Or high commercial sales? Or higher over all volume?

 

In all: Is your rolling year better or worse than last year's total?

Mine is better by about 10% so far.

For the rolling year, go to Summary and look up your total for period 1 year; for last year's total, go to your Dashboard.

Remember the month's not over yet, the rolling year in Summary starts at May 1st.

 

wim

 

My "rolling year" is up about 12% over lat year's total, which doesn't surprise me because 2015 was an especially bad year for me due mainly to declining sales numbers..

 

However, compared to my total for 2014, which was my best year on Alamy, my rolling year is down 45%.

 

 

..... and how many images have you added since 2014? 

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

 

Not sure, probably about 1500  -- which was lot for me -- since the end of 2014. Adding more images certainly hasn't been the easy road to riches that it is often touted to be.

 

 

 

 

 

It's like rowing against the stream isn't it? 

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

 

Yup, it's all right here.

[wiskerke]

I added about 240, which is about 10%.

 

Averages:

2005 - $195
2006 - $179
2007 - $458
2008 - $143
2009 - $73
2010 - $69
2011 - $65
2012 - $54
2013 - $52
2014 - $55
2015 - $59

I'm in all schemes; distributors; novel and whatever uses.

2016 so far: $51

But: monthly averages for sales:

2012 - 9.41
2014 - 14.6
2015 - 18.4

2016 - 26.3

Those averages are without counting Novel Use which petered out in 2014 with 0.8, but in 2013 were at the top with 3.9; all av/month.

 

So: more volume. Let's hope that's true for Alamy as a whole.

 

wim

[mickfly]

One of my archive images has sold recently as a personal use licence. It contains people who might want the image of them, any other use would be for the subject matter surrounding them. I know the people on the picture, so, I might have to ask if they bought it as I could have done a higher quality direct print sale for more profit.

On the other hand, if the Daily Mail (for instance) has bought it, then I'd rather keep the personal use sale value, as it is worth more.

Given the choice, which I might be given in the new format Alamy, I would decline personal sales unless they were of a higher value.
 

[John Mitchell]

It's reassuring to hear that there is a follow-up process for personal use licenses. Hopefully, we'll hear more from Alamy about other concerns (e.g. file size) in the future.

[Michael Ventura]

I never thought that a "personal use" sale would look good compared to the three distributor sales from Croatia that just posted in my sales. My total net for the THREE uses is $4.65!

[John Mitchell]

I never thought that a "personal use" sale would look good compared to the three distributor sales from Croatia that just posted in my sales. My total net for the THREE uses is $4.65!

 

There seem to be a lot of those teeny-weeny distributor sales around this month. I'm trying not to take it personally, though.

[Arletta]

The "editorial personal use" sales are still coming... Another product package (editorial only) image sold, and there's just no way that clients will use the bought images as "personal use"!

 

Please Alamy, do react in the case... What is going on here?!

[Callie]

The "editorial personal use" sales are still coming... Another product package (editorial only) image sold, and there's just no way that clients will use the bought images as "personal use"!

 

Please Alamy, do react in the case... What is going on here?!

 

I would email Member Services, as they said in their post above. Everyone should do this who has concerns. MS could get a lot of emails - a lot of emails are more likely to get a reaction than a lot of forum posts.

[Arletta]

Maybe you are right, but... Alamy forum is open for everyone and I believe it should be in Alamy's highest interest to make their contributors happy - it's us, photographers who support Alamy with our images, right? People who read the forum can find out what is happening here and be encouraged or discouraged to join/ upload/ support the agency. I like Alamy, I treat them seriously and I hope that their bad decisions will not make me stop trusting them for future. We all know how very important it is to trust each other, we already have excellent examples of what happens with agencies who are not fair with their photogs

 

 

Ps. Anyone else has problem with posting today?

[CM photo]

Too bad the people complaining about low distributor sales didn't take the opportunity to opt out last month.  And I wonder how many of them are the same people who have stated that "any sale is better than nothing".  

 

To give Alamy its due, it is the only agency I know of that will allow contributors to opt out of distributor sales.  

 

Chris (opted out to all but a handful of distributor countries)

[Callie]

Maybe you are right, but... Alamy forum is open for everyone and I believe it should be in Alamy's highest interest to make their contributors happy - it's us, photographers who support Alamy with our images, right? People who read the forum can find out what is happening here and be encouraged or discouraged to join/ upload/ support the agency. I like Alamy, I treat them seriously and I hope that their bad decisions will not make me stop trusting them for future. We all know how very important it is to trust each other, we already have excellent examples of what happens with agencies who are not fair with their photogs

 

 

Ps. Anyone else has problem with posting today?

 

I totally agree, I would much prefer for them to respond here, I think we all have a right to know what is going on. But so far we don't have much info from them - that is why I think it best to email them and perhaps if they get enough complaints they will take some action. They will probably only respond to specific enquiries resulting from a sale to the seller anyway, not openly on a forum - that seller can report back here if they wish.

 

Yes I like Alamy too, although I am a little down on them just now because of the poor sales figures recently - low distributor sales, etc. But I do hope it will improve and I totally agree it is in all our best interests to work together. But I am spending today on video production, not images.

 

At Chris M - no I didn't opt out, along with the appallingly bad distributor sales I have had good ones, some excellent ones.