Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on June 06, 2023, 12:53
Agencies have expenses, the biggest one marketing & sales, but also hosting costs, site design & maintenance, payment processing, customer support, contributor support, inspection, legal, etc. That's why they get a cut of the license fees. If marketing was easy and cheap, all the self-hosting and contributor cooperatives over the years would have put the agencies out of business

Just as a quick response to this, I wanted to flag that the distributors we use are agencies themselves within those local territories, with all of the same elements you cite above. The whole reason we do this, despite being a global online business, is because very often these local agents have agreements with local customers that are set in stone and long established - simply meaning that without using them, the sales wouldn't be made to those customers via Alamy.

The distribution revenue amounts to around 15% of our total revenue and we make each territory a selective opt in. We get that the scheme isn't for everyone but the majority of our contributors do opt in and are then open to the additional revenue opportunity.

Best regards

James Allsworth
Head of Content

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on July 03, 2022, 04:59
There are comments in the Alamy forum that this is a bug - an obsolete storage program that  surfaced when they made the changes for the new 20% royalty rate July 1. Several people say they reported it, but perhaps the more reports the better?

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

Yes, this was a bug which has now been corrected. We don't charge submission or storage fees - this is an obsolete bit of code from many many years ago.

Apologies for any confusion this caused.

Hi All,

The data has been pulled and looked at for the distributor in question and we can confirm they have operated within our agreement. 

The images were sourced from the pool of images opted into Chinese distribution and Novel Use. The usage confirmation report included a very small % of images that had opted out or had been deleted in the time between download and use, but the vast majority of images billed remain opted into both. 

The images selected have been used as part of a small business / personal template style application where users can quickly create small designs. The novel use pool was used for this as it covers low value / high volume style licence packages and our agreement with this distributor continues to limit them to the novel use pool, although there still may be some additional billing associated with images downloaded whilst opted in, that are now opted out.

These deals are done based on the fact that they are additional streams of revenue that allow our reach to grow within the market and gain ground on competitors. 

The average licence price we sell for remains a significant indicator as to our approach to pricing, and the fact that it has remained stable over the last 3 or 4 years at $26-$30 in a difficult market shows a level of robustness. Competition is fierce of course and last year saw record levels of contributor registrations and image uploads. The photographers who are growing revenue on Alamy and having continued success are supplying a steady stream of fresh and on-trend content and are seeing year on year growth in earnings. 

Future growth opportunities are on the horizon across all areas of our business and we'll share them with you at the earliest opportunity.

Best regards

James Allsworth

Head of Content

Quote from: thijsdegraaf on January 14, 2022, 19:07
Thanks for the first explanation. Unfortunately, it still does not provide no clarity about what exactly those low amounts are.
What worries me a bit, that the topics on the Alamy forum is closed with the same announcement. https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/15214-not-selling-for-pennies/?ct=1642187191  and https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/15213-selling-for-pennies/page/5/?tab=comments#comment-307654&ct=1641383040 . Maybe because until a full explanation of Alamy it doesn't make much sense to discuss it?

They were combined and locked to try and keep confusion down whilst we are investigating.

I've just unlocked the main thread in the main section on the official forum and should be able to provide a further update next week.

We have no plans or desire to close down our forum or stifle any kind of discussion that is constructive.

Best,

James A

Quote from: ShadySue on January 14, 2022, 19:01

Quote from: Alamy on January 14, 2022, 17:53
2021 had the average licence price in the same bracket as 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 - namely, an average of between $26 and $30 per licence. ... ... part of a bigger picture where our average price remains stable ...

That's strange, because on your current as-of-this-minute "Why should I sell stock imagery on Alamy?" page, which was written in May 2019*, it says, "The average image license fee on Alamy is $90".
https://www.alamy.com/contributor/why-alamy/how-much-money-can-i-make/?section=4

* <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2019-05-15T09:26:13+00:00" />

It's not strange - just a miss on our part. This page is outdated, and I'll make sure the correct info is added - I genuinely appreciate you flagging it.

We've been pretty consistent and open about the $30 average over the last few years in our comms with contributors and official forum and blog. This page should have been updated but was missed - no excuses.

James

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on January 14, 2022, 19:18

Quote from: Alamy on January 14, 2022, 17:53
... these types of deals are a requirement in todays market so you will see them from time to time, and we're not alone as an agency in having to provide such licence types.

4 cent royalties for a contributor on any type of sale is a complete non-starter.

Unless the volume is through the roof (which is not a sustainable situation for a perpetual royalty-free license) single digit cents just doesn't cover anyone creating content for you, no matter how low they keep their costs.

I've already made my decision - I started my 45-day termination clock earlier this month - but no matter how hard you look into it, you have two major problems. One is the pittance for royalties, and it isn't just the Chinese distributor at the end of December - I had an 8 cent royalty on a direct sale from Alamy in November. The other is your change in royalty structure that cuts a contributor's royalty from 40% to 20% when the July 2021 - July 2022 gross sales total is less than $250.

Once, that tiny gross sales figure would have been a doddle to exceed, but with 21 cent gross direct sales and 15 cent distributor sales it suddenly becomes much more likely. Alamy gets to grab a larger slice of the pie the worse the contributors' situation gets. In my book, that's not reasonable.

I take your point on the lower value sales and as I said before, I'm not going to pretend that those lower values are an incentive for contributors - but big picture is that we are making more sales and our average price is very stable and has been for a number of years. It means that anyone making 7-8 sales per year on average will stay in the standard 60/40 split, and for any that don't, you still get promoted to the 60/40 as soon as you hit $250 gross if you are on 80/20.

Best,

James

Hi All,

I've just posted this message on our official forum so thought it would also be good to post here.

Apologies on the radio silence up to this point whilst we investigate what's been happening with these sales via a Chinese distributor. The detail is more complex than it appears and we are still picking through the data to ascertain what's involved and how it has come to pass.

I'd also like to apologise for posting this on what is a Friday afternoon here in the UK. It's never the best time to post replies and I'm aware there will may be suspicions that this is some kind of deliberate tactic of waiting for a quiet period but I can assure you it isn't.

I'll be back in touch next week to share more detail of what has happened with this flurry of sales through the Chinese distribution channel. For now though I wanted to confirm that this level of pricing is not some radical new approach that we've taken on that will be rolled out across all sales. I also want to be honest though and say that these types of deals are a requirement in todays market so you will see them from time to time, and we're not alone as an agency in having to provide such licence types.

Our average price for per licence remains remarkably stable and has done since 2017. 2021 had the average licence price in the same bracket as 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 - namely, an average of between $26 and $30 per licence. On an individual level it was a record year for submissions and photographer registrations so that may naturally dilute the earnings for photographers who are facing more competition than ever. Our job is to continue to grow sales in order to grow as a business of course but also be a viable earning platform for this growing number of contributors. It's a tough, competitive market but we have some ambitious and exciting plans which we hope you can all be part of with us.

Low value sales like you've seen here are not encouraging of course and I'm not going to pretend they are, but taken in as part of a bigger picture where our average price remains stable and higher than our key competition - and our plans for growth are very promising - I hope those who are dissuaded from contributing as a result may reconsider and continue to work with us as we grow.

James Allsworth
Head of Content

Quote from: ouatedeP on November 18, 2021, 15:33
when questioned about it on their own forum, they Twice deleted threads instead of interacting with their own posters.

Not true. Threads were removed for breaching our forum content rules, not for posing questions about the survey.

James A

Hi All,

Hopefully I can add some clarity here.

Firstly, this survey is 100% optional and anonymous. We will end up with % numbers against the survey questions with no identifiable information next to the answers. The data itself is not accessible other than to view results as a summary and there is absolutely zero chance of us "selling this data on" (as has been suggested in this thread).

Picture buyers in the publishing world are increasingly interested in this type of information, and when I say interested, I'm not talking about us "tapping into" some kind of trend.

We have face to face meetings with world leading publishers who ask us specific questions about where the images on Alamy come from and who takes them. They are keen to source images from a diverse mix of providers that demonstrate equal opportunities and ethical dealings. This subject has become increasingly common in our client meetings over recent times and we felt that we did not have the right level of information to inform them, but also closer to home, we want to make sure we are operating in an ethical and inclusive way.

That is the reason as to why this has been sent. The format, wording and distribution method we've chosen has been reviewed at all levels within the business and signed off by the in-house legal team within PA Media.

I hope this clears up any confusion around the survey, if you have any specific questions then please feel free to email [email protected] and the Contributor Releations team will be happy to help.

Many thanks,

James Allsworth
Head of Content

Hi there,

Calling this fraud etc is a touch strong I feel - this was an issue with Paypal and the way they updated the security settings around how they process our payments. Once we knew the scope of the delay, we've emailed all those paid via paypal to update them about the delay.

We've checked this payment for you and can see it has been sent. We enquired with Paypal and they confirmed the funds are there but they haven't yet been claimed by you. A screenshot was sent to you earlier from the CR team.

Best wishes

James Allsworth
Head of Content

Quote from: Android Marvin (formerly mb) on July 16, 2020, 13:20

Thanks for your email, please read the following important information.


Temporarily, we're unlikely to be able to answer your email due to a reduction in team size whilst we respond to the global Covid-19 pandemic.

Please see my post above. We are working with a reduced team at the moment on the support email but I can look into this personally if you can share your details with me via PM, or mark your email to the contributor support address for my attention.

Thanks

James Allsworth
Head of Content

Quote from: Android Marvin (formerly mb) on July 03, 2020, 09:52
Without any public statement and/or personal answer what is going on it looks absolutely like a GANG job.

I sent you (and others) a PM here last week on this so I could look into this to get some clarity for you. Goes without saying that there is absolutely nothing "untoward" going on here but I will need your details to look into it properly so if you can reply that would be appreciated.

Thanks

James Allsworth
Head of Content

Quote from: steheap on November 20, 2019, 14:31
OK, thanks James. Perhaps your emails to contributors should make that clear? A friend of mine asked me the same question a few months back and there was no mention of liability.

Steve

Sure - that's good feedback and I'll pass it on to the team.

Cheers

James A

Quote from: steheap on November 15, 2019, 20:38
Sorry, James. If a photographer has set an editorial setting (as is the case here) it is because there is something in the image that they feel is protected in some way - a building, a piece of artwork, a person in the background etc. How can the photographer choose to remove that limitation without opening themselves up to a potential lawsuit. The publisher of an image is the one in the best position to judge if there is a risk in the use case they have in mind - not the photographer. Not sure what an exclusive sale has to do with an editorial marker. The question that was asked was whether the photographer would allow commercial use for an editorial image? How can they answer that question in any way other than "no".

Steve

To be clear, the onus in these situations is with the buyer and it is explained to them that they would take on any potential risk - however - we are unable to facilitate the sale itself whilst the photographer imposed restrictions have been placed on the image. We therefore ask about a lifting of the restriction to process the sale, not for indemnification from the contributor.

The "exclusive / conflicting previous sale elsewhere" question is still pertinent here as the restriction may have been placed on the image due to the rare situation of a previous licence determining that any future sales need to be editorial for a set amount of time.

Best

James A

Quote from: steheap on November 11, 2019, 22:38
I always find it very strange for Alamy to do this. Any client (ie the publisher) can use an image in whatever way they wish and they are in the best position to judge if it is a risk using the image in the way they want. So there is no need for the photographer to be asked anything. All they are doing is passing the potential liability back to the photographer who is in no position to judge if the planned usage is appropriate or not. In my view, the answer should always be - the client can decide.

Steve

Yes, in most cases the buyer is responsible, however if you have specifically placed restrictions for a usage on an image then we feel it's right that we check with you.

If we get a customer who wants to use an image that falls within restrictions that you've set, then we get in touch (like here). It's not about shifting responsibility onto the photographer, it's about honoring your wishes and checking to see if there is anything else we need to be aware of, such as an exclusive sale that has happened elsewhere that might conflict with this potential use.

Cheers

James A

Here's our latest infographic detailing some of the charitable initiatives we're currently involved in.

Quote from: ShadySue on August 29, 2019, 10:19

Quote from: Alamy on August 28, 2019, 15:33
Again, I hear you, however we get plenty of contributors asking us to allow more space for tags as they feel 50 is not enough. So for some, getting to 40 tags is really not a problem, even when adding highly relevant words - literal, descriptive and conceptual.

Are you checking all of those who ask? Usually when people have brought this up in Alamy's forum, their efforts to reach 50 words has left them with a lot of spam keywords.
It's not the person, it's the image. I have about 1% of my pics in the green, naturally, because these pics need alternate keywords or many place names (local going back to country), but most don't. Even Alamy's own 'exemplar' video has 16 keywords - though I remember a discussion on the forum which suggested that at least another three were relevant and important.
The more keywords you have, the more scope for malgorithms from combining/splitting random keywords (also with words in the caption).

Not sure how to answer your comment without repeating myself, sorry.

If you haven't got many images in the green but you feel you have tagged fully and thoroughly then great, you don't need to do anything else. As previously mentioned, we'll look at tweaking the messaging within AIM and the way it "grades" data in time.

As for the example vid, the image and tagging is just that - an example - it's not presented to be a fully optimised image.

Quote from: MxR on August 29, 2019, 07:26

Quote from: Alamy on August 28, 2019, 15:33
Again, I hear you, however we get plenty of contributors asking us to allow more space for tags as they feel 50 is not enough. So for some, getting to 40 tags is really not a problem, even when adding highly relevant words - literal, descriptive and conceptual.

Of course, this amount of tags is not always required, depending on the type of image, so it's not a perfect system by any means.

We are committed to continually develop the system and we've already made a number of changes and improvements since the original release. Before making any changes to the number of tags needed to achieve "good" status (or removing the discoverability bar entirely) we would adopt an evidence based approach looking at data across the board. E.G average number of tags in the collection, looking at best performing collections and number of tags per image etc before making any decisions. It's worth noting that previously we had a character based system rather than individual tags, and when we analysed the collection at the time we found that 50 tags seemed to be the sweet spot in terms of an optimal number. Things change all the time though and we've had enough feedback to know it needs to be revisited and tweaked if required.

So I can't offer any timeframes for change, but just know that if you feel you have added all relevant information yet still don't have a "good" rating for the image discoverability, it's fine to leave it as "poor / amber". I think we all agree that labeling something "poor" from our side is no longer the best terminology, however at the time of release this was about encouraging contributors to provide more info as a lot of it was too sparse.

We know we're not perfect but we promise to learn from our failings - the perfect system probably does not exist when you're dealing with 150,000 contributors, all of which have different requirements and image types - but we'll keep evolving!

Thanks for sticking with us.

James A

Hello, I see that the button to upload the model releaseo has disappeared for both Mac and Windows, take a look, I have not been able to upload a new authorization for two months!

In a bid to simplify the upload process we removed the requirement for you to upload releases. If you have a release available, just check the box to say you have one. If we have a client that needs a copy, then we'll get in touch with you.

Cheers

James A

Again, I hear you, however we get plenty of contributors asking us to allow more space for tags as they feel 50 is not enough. So for some, getting to 40 tags is really not a problem, even when adding highly relevant words - literal, descriptive and conceptual.

Of course, this amount of tags is not always required, depending on the type of image, so it's not a perfect system by any means.

We are committed to continually develop the system and we've already made a number of changes and improvements since the original release. Before making any changes to the number of tags needed to achieve "good" status (or removing the discoverability bar entirely) we would adopt an evidence based approach looking at data across the board. E.G average number of tags in the collection, looking at best performing collections and number of tags per image etc before making any decisions. It's worth noting that previously we had a character based system rather than individual tags, and when we analysed the collection at the time we found that 50 tags seemed to be the sweet spot in terms of an optimal number. Things change all the time though and we've had enough feedback to know it needs to be revisited and tweaked if required.

So I can't offer any timeframes for change, but just know that if you feel you have added all relevant information yet still don't have a "good" rating for the image discoverability, it's fine to leave it as "poor / amber". I think we all agree that labeling something "poor" from our side is no longer the best terminology, however at the time of release this was about encouraging contributors to provide more info as a lot of it was too sparse.

We know we're not perfect but we promise to learn from our failings - the perfect system probably does not exist when you're dealing with 150,000 contributors, all of which have different requirements and image types - but we'll keep evolving!

Thanks for sticking with us.

James A

Quote from: ShadySue on August 28, 2019, 10:21

Quote from: OM on August 28, 2019, 09:27
I find it weird that 'good discoverability/poor discoverability' of an image seems to be determined by number of keywords above 40.

It's not, that's just some insane thing someone thought up, but they aren't humble enough to say 'we made a mistake'.

I think maybe "insane" is a little unfair. We've been open and appreciate that the current system doesn't work for everyone but it does for others. Some contributors feel that we ask for too much info and others feel that we don't give enough space to add even more tags!

Essentially, we had an issue before the current system where many contributors were not adding enough information, just adding a handful of tags. We needed a system that would encourage users to add more info, and that's what this system does. We've been very open and said within our help info that the "discoverability bar" is not analysing your data in any way, it's just essentially letting you know if you have more space to add more info. The more relevant information you can add the better, and the key term there is relevant - again, something we've been trying to make clear to contributors. I'm sure we'll tweak the terminology in time, maybe even remove the "discoverability" labelling as we can appreciate this can be confusing. We do test any changes with groups of current contributors before going live though to get feedback, and this system was no exception.

We need a caption and 5 tags to get the image searchable - everything else is optional. Additional info like number of people, release info etc is desirable but not mandatory. We'll extract any embedded info and apply it, so if you have a caption and 5 tags the images will go online without you doing anything else.  Supertagging definitely does help images get higher up in the search engine - so if you have the time to do it and want to give certain images a boost for certain words then you should try and make the time to take advantage. Again though, not mandatory so it's a judgement call for you and your time.

Back to the OP question though - is Alamy worth it? Of course we would say yes, but it works better for some than for others. We'll offer you 50% commission for images exclusive to us and 40% for non-exclusive. Our average licence price is $35, although as others have mentioned, it's not uncommon to get much higher and sometimes lower. If you have a portfolio of images sat on your hard drive or sat on another site, you absolutely should upload them to Alamy to see if we can make you some additional revenue. Once the images are up and online, there is nothing further for you to do other than enjoy the extra money! We pay out well in excess of $1 million every month to contributors so you should put yourself in the mix and get a slice.

Happy to answer any other questions here about Alamy as best I can. As others can attest to, I'm also open to answering any questions you have via PM if you'd rather not ask out in the open.

Cheers

James Allsworth

Contributor Experience Manager

If you're still facing issues please email [email protected] with your details and they'll be happy to help.

Cheers

James A

There were issues with the google CAPTCHA service we use for login, should be fixed now.

Sorry for any trouble.

Cheers

James A

Quote from: ShadySue on February 07, 2019, 19:50

Quote from: AnneS on February 07, 2019, 16:22

Quote from: drd on February 01, 2019, 19:29
Nothing seems to sell these days/years on Alamy.

I have been consistently selling on Adobe Stock and Shutterstock last year and no bites on Alamy. I've been starting to wonder if anyone does sell there.

Has anyone tried creating images on the "what should I shoot page?"  (I'm searching for the Abba jumpsuits and finding a woman to walk a cheetah, but hoping I can make it soon to the Tomb of Mehu.) Seriously, though, is it worth consulting the list for some of the more reasonable items, with reasonable being a relative thing depending on location, budget, etc.?

The list is based on searches they haven't been able to fulfil in the past (last year? not sure how long). However, three of the searches referring to places near me refer to historic legal cases, which may never be searched for again. (one doesn't actually exist any more, but people may have had a historic photo, it was a former children's home which featured in a 'historic abuse' inquiry early last year).

There was also a request for a town in Australia - but when I looked out of curiosity, I saw there were already over 600 photos, mostly high quality, of that town. I don't know whether that meant that someone had looked at over 600 pics without buying any (but their system isn't that informative) - but the potential buyer presumably would then filter down for what they actually wanted.

With the way prices are going on Alamy nowadays, I wouldn't go out of my way to fulfil any of these pics; but if I happened to be passing, why not?

All items listed on the "what should I shoot?" tool are verified manually to ensure that whatever appears on there is a genuine need. We don't add items on there that have just been searched for once for example. The list comes from search data but also feedback from our clients and sales teams.

If you found a case where we already have material of something listed, then what we're saying is that we need more of that subject and a fresh supply of imagery.

A quick note on the pricing comment at Alamy - although like all agencies our average prices started to dip around 2008 following the recession, our average price has actually been stable since 2015 at $35 per licence.

The "what should I shoot?" tool was introduced to help answer that very question that we get asked the most, pointing contributors to a list of image needs that have been asked for by clients and verified by us.

Cheers

James A

Quote from: Dodie on October 19, 2018, 09:06

Quote from: Alamy on October 19, 2018, 08:43

The team will be happy to check this for you - please email the details to [email protected]

Best,

James Allsworth
Contributor Experience Manager

Hi there,

Just your name and email address you've registered with Alamy under.

Thanks

James
Hi James,

Thank you for your help.
By details you mean my contributor ID and image ID-s? I have no other details.
I appologize for being so ignorant in Alamy matters.

Thanks again.

Quote from: Steveball on October 15, 2018, 12:58
So we agree to give away images!

9.1. In addition to the promotion rights set out in 8.3 above you grant Alamy permission to sell your Images at any price and by any method we feel appropriate and to supply Images to third parties without Alamy having to consult you, including but not limited to trials with new Customers, prototypes/proof of concept and high volume low unit price licences. Where Alamy does not make a charge to these third parties, you will not receive payment.

Just to confirm what has been said above, clause 9.1 refers to Novel Use (an optional, opt-in scheme that you can choose to be part of or not). This clause has essentially been part of the contract for 10 years, we've just re-worded it to make it clearer to cover those extremely rare cases where we may not make a charge when we supply images for certain proof of concept style projects (which often lead to future sales).

If you've got any other questions, feel free to drop us an email: [email protected]

Thanks,

James Allsworth
Contributor Experience Manager