Quote from: RT on January 25, 2010, 11:52

As God is my witness this month (Jan 2010) some of the image licenses I've sold RF on Alamy where for:
77.89
76.00
77.89
62.32
74.78
107.10
152.00

Looks about right to me, Richard, on the numbers.  Although I have nothing near your sales volume there. 

This month I have had three sales:
$70.10
$152.00
$74.99

Two out of three would have sold for higher (for similar licenses) on the Micros.

Sorry, even if I did think it was my job to sit in judgment of other people's morals, I would want to make sure I had my facts straight.  But that's just me.  I hate looking like an a$$.

Here's where you folks are losing me. And by the way, no I don't care if someone sells their photo for $1000 on site X and 10c on site Z, that's not what I'm asking.

People are saying that they sold photos on Alamy for (see above)  RF with a bunch of nice numbers. And then saying it's the same or worse than micro. But let me point out my last sales on SS for this month 25c, 25c, 25c, 25c... on IS .69c, 59c, 63c, 2.28, 29c All RF. And then say they "would have sold for higher (for similar licenses) on the Micros."

You may, but two things. They don't sell with the same licenses, they sell from subscriptions or on demand, so the hypothetical, would have sold with the same license, doesn't seem to apply.

I'm not trying to start a battle but when people license things from a micro, we get a buck or two, here and there. So the "same license" kind of throws me. I'll add that the last three EL on SS were $28 (all RF) and the last three editorial sales (none RF) on Alamy were $80 commission. That's not the same?

Last of all, Alamy is NOT microstock. It's a different market, different buyers, different concentrations of content, different photo sizes. I don't know how come this keep coming up like they are comparable situations? My Honda is not a Hummer. I get better mileage, it cost me less, it is less expensive to insure, if I try to drive offroad, I'll tear the bottom off my car, and yes they are both transportation, but it's ridiculous to compare them to each other as they are functionally different.

That's the way I feel about Micro sales vs Alamy sales. Yeah, they both sell photos...

So is it just me, or do some people who have thousands of good images, suddenly find that they are getting extended licenses on Micro that equal or exceed Alamy, but the rest of us, don't see this phenomenon? Maybe it's that I don't shoot models with releases for micro?

The point is, I find none of the same commissions or licenses on micro that I do with Alamy. Can someone explain how this happens?

Yes, it's a good guess and makes some good sense. If they are going to sell to British newspapers for $8, it's already here. True about the grey areas. Didn't Getty try some $50 limited license and there was an uproar? Fine for the Trads. who were screaming breach of contract, they got what they wanted. Now Getty has multiple Micro sites and is cherry picking Flickr and the people who balked at the changes, have their full price images sitting unused because of the prices.

I thought Alamy tried some special license which failed miserably. That was the one that people called Microstock and they said it wasn't the same. Oh yes, it was called novel use in June of 2008: "Limited Use has been devised to let your images compete in the low cost �micropayment� market without undermining your existing revenue streams on Alamy." Put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig.



My second best selling Microstock image is on Alamy RF (full size not 4MP) and it has never sold. In fact it may have never been searched or viewed or zoomed. Different horses for different courses.

Taking RM and editorial aside, financially speaking, the biggest difference between Alamy and microstock sites in general  are SUBSCRIPTIONS hence where the  25c-69c are from.  At SS a buyer needs to pay $249.00 a month to subscribe for very limited licenses.  

Last month I had a few Alamy RF sales at $8.05 each which I made $4.83 each with a broader license then a $28.00 EL on SS. This month I had one Alamy RF sale at $313.86 and another one at $150.00. This is not a matter of one site selling low and another one selling high, this has become a matter of the same site selling low and high making boundaries grayer.

How long do you think before Alamy start doing subscriptions for their RF collection?  I use to like Alamy the way it was, but I think because of economics, evolution and this capitalistic world that it is just a matter of time for the Alamy RF collection to get closer to the microstock sites model. However I do believe that editorial and very specific RM subject matters will still have a place with Alamy for a long time to come.  

I think that all their RF collection will eventually become similar to micro sites with subscriptions while editorial and RM become a separate entity within Alamy. This is only a guess. Denis