Author Topic: Files sold as both RF and RM on Alamy (Read 4144 times)

ShadySue · « **Reply #25 on:** February 25, 2012, 05:19 »

This is something they need to make a bit more sophisticated.
If you have unrecogniseable bits of people in an image, you must tick people - no MR (if you haven't got one) and it shows up as 'with people' on a search.
That's fine from covering the MR angle, and the buyer can assess the risk of whether the group of pixels which represent an unrecogniseable bit of a person is likely to sue.
But it really mucks up the search. I'm sure that if a searcher ticks 'with people' they actually want to be able to see the people clearly, not an empty scene with some tiny blobs in the background.
And note that by Alamy's rules, it's only an actual person who needs an MR. E.g. a poster with a 'recognisable person' would need need a PR for the poster design, but not an MR. I'm sure this scenario could be potentially risky, but can only think of convoluted hypotheticals right now.

click_click · « **Reply #26 on:** February 25, 2012, 11:32 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on February 25, 2012, 04:05

...A) You cannot change the license on Alamy, you can only take down the image, which takes a long time ...

This is incorrect. I accidentally submitted some images with the wrong license and Member Support swiftly changed the license type. No big deal.

Alamy just doesn't offer a user interface so we can change it ourselves and of course they don't want people to constantly switch their licenses either. But if you made a mistake, Member Services can (and did - for me) correct it.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #27 on:** February 25, 2012, 13:28 »

Fair enough. The upload interface says you can't change it. Support obviously can do more than the interface.

click_click · « **Reply #28 on:** February 25, 2012, 14:06 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on February 25, 2012, 13:28

Fair enough. The upload interface says you can't change it. Support obviously can do more than the interface.

Most importantly the license types are not set in stone. I'm sure that if I contacted Member Support every 2 weeks asking 100 licenses to be switched they would eventually disable my port and tell me to remove the images and re-upload them correctly.

panicAttack · « **Reply #29 on:** February 25, 2012, 14:18 »

Quote from: XPTO on February 25, 2012, 03:09

Absolutely not, according to the Alamy contract you've signed.

And I advise you to change the license of those images in alamy to RF as soon as possible, because if a client pays thousands of dollars for an image that he believes he is the only one using because the sales history on alamy says so, and later finds that it's being used by hundreds or thousands of other people that bought it in Micro you may end up having a lot of problems.

You should read my second post here. I'm not selling, just asked.

I only have 6 images there, 2 of them are RM and they can't be found anywhere else

stormchaser · « **Reply #30 on:** February 25, 2012, 18:47 »

Quote from: stormchaser on February 25, 2012, 02:24

Quote from: sharpshot on February 24, 2012, 17:37
Quote from: click_click on February 24, 2012, 14:48
Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on February 24, 2012, 14:19
Well there are images that are acceptable as RF on the micros (eg something unreleased with a completely unidentifiable person in it) which can only be sold RM on Alamy. You are now effectively banned from placing such an image on Alamy, in the past (as I understood it) you could have sold it on both the micros and on Alamy.

You are right, as of now, (most) Micros allow such images without a release.

This might change though in the future as Alamy got sued for such an image and therefore implemented this new rule of requiring a release for people pics.
So as soon as the micros get hammered with such law suits they might change their requirements as well.

However, the OP didn't give me the impression (or proof) that the images were actually people pics or no-people pics. So we can't really help here.

When were alamy sued? I watched their AGM video a few years ago and they never mentioned being sued. They mentioned photos that shouldn't be sold as RF but I remember someone asking if that had caused problems and they said it hadn't. I think they wanted to make their rules for when to use RF and RM clear cut. People can say they recognise themselves in a photo, even if it isn't them. How can a reviewer decide when a model release is required and how can buyers be sure they don't need one? The way alamy have done it makes it very clear.

I believe the suit was because of someone who had actually forged a model release. 2 Years ago maybe? Check their blog. I remember them posting it there.

On the lookup, there was no actual suit. I should have done the lookup when I made my previous post. The facts are that a contributor contract was terminated as a result of the incident in the blog post here

http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2008/02/25/2681.aspx

So lawsuit, no as far as this reads, although it is very possible Alamy may have been on the hook for some damages. To my knowledge further details have not been disclosed, and Alamy is under no obligation to disclose any private settlements.

As people sometimes lie about things like releases in desperation to get a stupid photo posted, they are now required. Next step would be forgery - then you've got some real trouble.

Just as a note some of the posters here don't seem to know what a rights managed license actually entails and I suggest you do some outside reading rather than listen to the misinformation being presented here.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #31 on:** February 25, 2012, 23:54 »

Quote from: stormchaser on February 25, 2012, 18:47

Just as a note some of the posters here don't seem to know what a rights managed license actually entails and I suggest you do some outside reading rather than listen to the misinformation being presented here.

"Outside reading" is mostly a waste of time since it is a misconception to think a rights managed contract is a single thing that can be described in generic chit-chat, much of which is based on misconceptions created by the microstock industry.

What you can usefully do is read the details of the contract whatever site you are selling from. Alamy, for example, cannot sell any exclusive usage rights from its standard RM license without contacting the photographer to check they are available, since it does not know the history of an RM image (how could it, since it allows you to sell it via other agencies?). Come to think of it, since even the photographer may not know the image's history, as sales reports can be delayed, Alamy really shouldn't offer exclusive rights with any image that is not provided exclusively to them.