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Country: Worldwide
Usage: Personal use, Personal prints, cards and gifts, or reference for artists. Non-commercial use only, not for resale.
Media: Non-commercial, one time, personal/home use

 

First time I saw “reference for artists “.

Betty

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I'm not part of the sales department at Alamy, so I spend little to no time figuring out what they do. Basically, I trust Alamy, and see myself as an image maker. I get a lot of PU sales, most for $19.99. What does it all mean? I have no idea.

 

Edo

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I've not seen 'reference for artists' before on Alamy, though I have on one or two occasions been asked by a painter, in person, if they could use my photo as a reference - essentially rendering my photo into a watercolour on canvas.  The terms of the licence above suggest that the artist could not then go on to sell prints of their watercolour, though I'm by no means sure about that. 

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I have had one recently, too.

 

Usage: Personal use, Personal prints, cards and gifts, or reference for artists. Non-commercial use only, not for resale.
Media: Non-commercial, one time, personal/home use. Same price.

 

KK6R0R

 

If it had paid more one might have seen it as a kind of pat on the shoulder.

 

 

Niels

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I am not in the PU scheme but it sounds like a catchall phrase for Alamy to cover themselves.

 

Allan

 

 

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17 minutes ago, Niels Quist said:

Will adding an artistic filter be enough to allow reselling the image on cards, etc.? How much does the artist have to do?

 

The PU license states that the image cannot be resold. I think that "reference for artists" refers to people who want to use the photograph as a reference  (not alter the original image digitally) for creating a work of their own in another medium -- e.g. a painting of a particular mountain or lake, etc.

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Artists have always used photographs as a reference for their artwork. They usually do not copy, but instead use the reference to make sure they get the subject correctly rendered. How many toes on a sloth? How does light reflect on a wet fish? How does the light filter through trees in the winter, or differently in the summer?

 

I am glad artists are honestly making use of the PU feature. If the feature was not available then they still may use the image for artists reference without paying anything. Something to think about if you have disabled PU.

 

Here is an image of mine that Alamy sold for artists reference recently.

 

lake-ontario-chinook-salmon-attempting-l

 

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22 minutes ago, Bill Brooks said:

Artists have always used photographs as a reference for their artwork. They usually do not copy, but instead use the reference to make sure they get the subject correctly rendered. How many toes on a sloth? How does light reflect on a wet fish? How does the light filter through trees in the winter, or differently in the summer? use of the PU feature. If the feature was not available then they still may use the image for artists reference without paying anything. Something to think about if you have disabled PU.

 

Here is an image of mine that Alamy sold for artists reference recently.

 

lake-ontario-chinook-salmon-attempting-l

 

 

 

That's right. My father, who was a very good Sunday landscape painter, used to use photographs for reference all the time. Of course, anyone could abuse the PU license (or any other license for that matter) and try to resell an altered image. C'est la vie in the digital age.

 

BTW, how do you know that your leaping salmon was used specifically for artists reference? My PU licenses always read as follows: " Personal use, Personal prints, cards and gifts, or reference for artists. Non-commercial use only, not for resale." 

 

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15 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

BTW, how do you know that your leaping salmon was used specifically for artists reference? My PU licenses always read as follows: " Personal use, Personal prints, cards and gifts, or reference for artists. Non-commercial use only, not for resale." 

 

 

I am assuming it was for “artists reference” because I have sold PU licenses in the same time period that included “Personal use, Personal prints, cards and gifts” without the additional “artists reference” designation.

Of course it could be that “artists reference” has just been recently added to a general PU list.

 

There is a theory that most copyright theft on the internet would be curtailed if the price was low enough and the sale process was easy enough. Good on Alamy.

So I signed up for PU to harvest some extra, otherwise unobtainable money, and also as a public service to curtail copyright theft.

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59 minutes ago, Bill Brooks said:

 

I am assuming it was for “artists reference” because I have sold PU licenses in the same time period that included “Personal use, Personal prints, cards and gifts” without the additional “artists reference” designation.

Of course it could be that “artists reference” has just been recently added to a general PU list.

 

There is a theory that most copyright theft on the internet would be curtailed if the price was low enough and the sale process was easy enough. Good on Alamy.

So I signed up for PU to harvest some extra, otherwise unobtainable money, and also as a public service to curtail copyright theft.

 

Interesting. I just checked my sales data, and "artists reference" started appearing in my PU licenses in June 2017 and has shown up in every PU license since then. Perhaps a lot of clients were requesting this usage, although one would think that the free downloadable preview images -- even with the watermarks -- might suffice in most cases.

 

 

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Once upon a time in another life I was a watercolor artist. I often painted from photographs, but first I set out and took the photograph I used for reference.

I was aware of copyright even then, and thought using another’s photo was against the rules. Maybe I was all wet.  Before I started watercolor, I painted two oils. The one that was successful was my 2nd painting from a photo of an old barn taken from the highway on the way to visit my mother. The first I was just trying to figure out what the heck I was doing, since I never had instruction.

Neither was sold...my mother immediately claimed the barn painting, (which came back to me at her death) and I donated the other to Goodwill. 

 

That said, I always made changes from photo to painting. If a branch stuck out ugly in front of a barn, it didn’t in the final painting.  Different sky. Add a windmill. Whatever to make the painting sing.

My understanding was that if one used another’s work, there had to be quite a large percent that was different from the reference, and then you could sell it.

 

I did sell sell the watercolors. All painted from my imagination or my own photographs.

Betty

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12 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Once upon a time in another life I was a watercolor artist. I often painted from photographs, but first I set out and took the photograph I used for reference.

I was aware of copyright even then, and thought using another’s photo was against the rules. Maybe I was all wet.  Before I started watercolor, I painted two oils. The one that was successful was my 2nd painting from a photo of an old barn taken from the highway on the way to visit my mother. The first I was just trying to figure out what the heck I was doing, since I never had instruction.

Neither was sold...my mother immediately claimed the barn painting, (which came back to me at her death) and I donated the other to Goodwill. 

 

That said, I always made changes from photo to painting. If a branch stuck out ugly in front of a barn, it didn’t in the final painting.  Different sky. Add a windmill. Whatever to make the painting sing.

My understanding was that if one used another’s work, there had to be quite a large percent that was different from the reference, and then you could sell it.

 

I did sell sell the watercolors. All painted from my imagination or my own photographs.

Betty

 

That was more or less what I meant by whether it was enough to use a filter to resell a PU sale. Fotosketcher could easily make some sort of painting with either paint strokes or anything else that might be sold. Once in a while I do a random image search on the PU sales.

 

Niels

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If an artist wishes to use an image just as a reference, a low-res jpeg from a website is almost always good enough. With Alamy they can grab a zoomed image if they wish and just ignore the watermark. No need at all to buy full size files even if they are almost a giveaway. The only reason would be to use the file for something else. I'll say it again, 99% of so-called 'personal sales' are no such thing and Alamy knows it, as do the customers.

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1 hour ago, Dyn Llun said:

If an artist wishes to use an image just as a reference, a low-res jpeg from a website is almost always good enough.

That could still be an infringement, of course.

I'm as disappointed as the next man with the low fees, but as Bill says, at least they're paying. I'm sure Alamy has ways of auditing PUs, such as volume of images on a certain credit card or to the same account. I haven't yet found a PU online.

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2 hours ago, Dyn Llun said:

If an artist wishes to use an image just as a reference, a low-res jpeg from a website is almost always good enough. With Alamy they can grab a zoomed image if they wish and just ignore the watermark. No need at all to buy full size files even if they are almost a giveaway. The only reason would be to use the file for something else. I'll say it again, 99% of so-called 'personal sales' are no such thing and Alamy knows it, as do the customers.

 

Or it could be that, because they are artists themselves sensitive to other artists copyright, they are just being honest.

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Had lunch with an artist friend the other day...she was telling me about another artist who painted off photographs he did not purchase a copyright too, and then was sued by the photographer. The photographer won.

 

And then of course...there was this fun local case, where an artist used photographs for an art installation and is now being sued for copyright infrigment....bottom line, in Canada, you have to own the rights to use the source material by the looks of things.

 

https://www.diyphotography.net/artist-steals-whole-set-photos-15500-commissioned-installation/

 

 

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20 hours ago, MandyD said:

Had lunch with an artist friend the other day...she was telling me about another artist who painted off photographs he did not purchase a copyright too, and then was sued by the photographer. The photographer won.

 

And then of course...there was this fun local case, where an artist used photographs for an art installation and is now being sued for copyright infrigment....bottom line, in Canada, you have to own the rights to use the source material by the looks of things.

 

https://www.diyphotography.net/artist-steals-whole-set-photos-15500-commissioned-installation/

 

 

That’s the way I understood it.  Everything, from photo to final art rendition should be from the artist.  If you take a photo of an iconic subject then turn it into a painting or other art object, you’d better keep your original photograph as proof the photo is yours and the final rendition is yours. 

Betty

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An artist used one of mine, an evening shot including the Chrysler Building in NY. It was found via Pixsys, but they wouldn't chase it. 

I contacted her and finished up with £250. She was prolific in her art, which involved projecting images onto MDF and painting them with household paint. She exhibited worldwide.

My image was copied almost exactly, even down to the exact lights being on or off in each building!

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Some years ago I had an artist who contacted me 3 - 4 times a year to 'use' one of my images as a reference.

 

Initially, we agreed to a fee, then moved to a percentage of the sale option with a minimum fee, it appeared to work for us both. 

 

I can only wish that other people were as open and honest 

 

 

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3 hours ago, mickfly said:

An artist used one of mine, an evening shot including the Chrysler Building in NY. It was found via Pixsys, but they wouldn't chase it. 

I contacted her and finished up with £250. She was prolific in her art, which involved projecting images onto MDF and painting them with household paint. She exhibited worldwide.

My image was copied almost exactly, even down to the exact lights being on or off in each building!

Good catch!

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