What an utter load of old rubbish, OK SS and IS are protecting themselves from litigation, but whichever legal entity allows places of natural beauty to be tradmarked is a joke. I had the same problem with the words "world cup". Why don't they just copyright our thoughts as well.

Rant over

Oldhand

PS - Looking forward to teaching the yanks a lesson on Saturday!!!

http://www.fotoware.com/en/Products/FotoStation/Overview/

Best captioning software on the planet IMHO - however come's at a heavy price.

Oldhand

Quote from: madelaide on May 31, 2010, 17:27

To me this is more on the moral side.  It's ok that we can use things that are now public domain, but is it correct to sell them?

What if you were writing an article about Shakespeare for example and wanted to illustrate it with one of the very few portraits that are generally accepted? Ultimately someone has to scan it, clean it up, keyword it, upload it and also the agency has to host it. Surely they deserve to be paid for the service they are providing?

There's quite a nice choice of Shakespeare portraits on IS, very few on SS and DT and none at all on FT & BigStock.

One of the biggest sellers of these type of images has a clause to that effect. They are providing a service or facility, which is what they are paid for. They don't claim the copyright themselves.

To pick up madelaide's point, I saw in a hollywood film that Indians's didn't like being photographed as it meant them losing their soul. We are talking hollywood here, but it's a shame that good pics from willing subjects never see the light of day. If we all took a moral stance (no criticism implied here), then where would the pics of Shakespeare in children's textbooks come from?

To finish (it's been a long a wearisome day), if anyone has any contacts in Hollywood, get yourselves on the distribution list for film stills from the lastest blockbuster movies. Send them off to the right outlets (again facilitating a service, in no way claiming copyright), and it's the same principle. Micro doesn't take them but Alamy, sure as England will slip up in South Africa, will.

By the way, thank's to a certain agency who pulled all my world cup images a week before it starts because of the most ridiculous copyrighted term law in the World.

Looking forward to beating all you good American at the sport we invented.

Oldhand

As I understand things:-

Firstly we're talking historical images, they are very big sellers with the correct outlets. Look at someone like Mary Evans picture library on Alamy etc. Old cartoons, photos', engravings etc. This is an overlooked area as the difficulty is in getting hold of the pictures at a good resolution.

Assuming you've got hold of some, let's say native Americans from the 1800's. It does not matter if ten other people have the same pic on Alamy, public domain is just that. You are merely paid as a facilitator or source of the image. You scan, keyword and upload it, hence deserve to be paid. If your's is of better quality, at the top of the search, or keworded better you may make the sale.

Next problem where to sell them. Alamy is your first port of call, especially now as you can have separate upload route for collections of historical images over 5mb if I recall correctly. This has levelled a previously difficult playing field where large agencies only were able to sell them online at Alamy under their previous 48mb limit. Other macro agents would take them, but that would take some more research.

With the micro's, the following was the case a few years ago, not sure about today..

SS - No - has to have been taken created by you.
IS  - Yes - you must prove it is in the public domain.
CRE - Yes - but so what!
FT - Not that I'm aware of.
DT - Possible, again they have their own criteria for accepting them
123 - Possible
Can - Possible

Send them to Alamy and IS for the best returns.

On a slightly different note, try looking on Alamy for film stills - plenty of scope if you can get hold of them!

Oldhand

ditto

Steady worsening in UK editorial market apart from sales made through Alamy. Direct sales as a macro agent very little.

Overseas macro agents I deal with, consistent returns in Denmark, France and Germany, everywhere else hit and miss.

Oddly enough Getty contacted me this week after my bank details for a payment owing. All well and good, but I have never supplied them with anything unless it was their old newsmakers site about seven years ago - I shall see.

Micro - consistent slog at the moment without any appreciable breakthrough.

Good luck

Oldhand

I am already at double the previous highest number of downloads for the month.

I thought I was finally getting somewhere!

Rgds

Oldhand

"Radix malorum est cupiditas", as my old English teacher used to say. Love of money is the root of all evil.

It's been evil my whole life, unfortunately a necessary one. I never had a good job, nor did what I wanted to do. I drifted into photography and scrabble around to make it pay for my wonderful wife and four children. I'll probably end up dying a happy but poor man.

50,000$ is a good starting wage in any country in the world, it will keep you housed and clothed with food in your stomach. Anything extra is a bonus.

If I could do any job in the world, I'd play music for a living - as thing's are it's a luxury to find time to tune my guitar.

I'm overworked, stressed, graying and a shadow of my youth - all for the pursuit money. On the plus side I have no boss, and work from home where I can see my children grow up and hear them play in the garden after school when I'm at work.

If someone offered my good money for a job with benefits, sociable hours and holiday pay I might just take it, the alternative being held at the whim of people who may or may not buy my pictures.

If I was earning $200 a day doing what you are, I'd keep the other job and enjoy the extra cash. But, I'm no entrepreneur, just a working class English man with a chip on his sagging shoulders.

Good luck whatever you decide.

Oldhand (who's old before his time)

Same here  - didn't actually count them, 2 novel use for $5 each, 60-70 at 1$.

Very odd. I have two pseudonym's, one of photo's, one of illustrations. The photo's sold around 10, the illustrations the other 60.

The Alamy forums should be fun this evening.

Rgds

Oldhand

Quote from: RacePhoto on April 26, 2010, 15:44

You need to apply and be accepted to get access to the upload path for News. It's not automatic.

They ask for a website, and I don't have anything newsworthy at mine. I guess I have to upload some, I have several sports events photos - the latest was the Red Bull Air Race last weekend.

I've never had a website, just sent in news pics by FTP / Email for 10 years. I am not sure why a website would be a prerequisite for supplying news material. I'd investigate further as my guess is that they are just they are interested in what type of news pics you can supply.

They still make wads of money from red carpet arrivals for anyone living near civilisation, unlike me who has the odd stray sheep. Bizarrly though, the Queen is heading over my direction for a visit, come to see the commoner's and check on her estates. I'll keep my camera handy, if I can avoid the crowds and press with Royal rota passes.

Oldhand

Hi there - to chip in from the "other side" so to speak.

I started my own photo agency over 10 years ago after 10 years with two larger agencies, specializing in travel photographs. I never actually travelled anywhere, I simply had a look at photographers with large collections of pictures on the internet of marketable material.

They were all gathering dust on the hard drives, and the photographers had no idea how to sell them. My arragement was simple. The photographer sent me all the pics on CD's with the files named to I could identify where they were from. I did all the photoshop work (I'm a one man band 80 hrs a week), and captioned the pics for sale. They were then syndicated to all my outlets - 20 or so macro agencies in different countries, and directly to the UK press.

I then kept track of sales, got cuttings where possible, and paid 50:50 to the photographer reported every three months. This I did for 20 or so photographers, however as time has gone on the editorial market wasn't as lucrative, so some have given up or gone their own way. I never sent any to Alamy, as I did't deal with them at the time.

Most agencies I sell with have a 60:40 split, so the snapper was getting 30%. With UK media, they were getting 50%

It was worthwhile, and would probably be more so nowadays as Alamy sell's a huge volume of travel pics.

Over the last three years I diversified with my own images into micro as well, which is again lucrative.

I would not take on any more images just for Alamy, but would if the deal was going to beneficial for all concerned. As an example, I' would photoshop and upload all your images to Alamy, and you can keep 100% of sales with no fee's invloved for the work. The same photographs you would then allow me to syndicate to oversea's agents and or micro for a share of the profit's.

That's an issue to outside of this site, and I'd be happy to discuss it with you. Alternatively when my esteemed colleagues have finished debating wether they are holiday pictures or not they may be able to point you in an alternative direction.

I'll check in on this thread later, off to vote in the UK election now!

Rgds

Oldhand

Quote from: Oldhand on April 29, 2010, 14:34

Funny old game - oh, and back to the thread, measuring DT over quarters rather than by monthly sales, it's still in the ascendency.

Isn't this just a mere reflection of increase in portfolio smoothed out? The benchmark should really be RPI.

Hi there -RPI is most people's benchmark, but I count the bottom line, always have done. As long as it is increasing I am on the right path for the amount of time spent on micro. If I worked out the RPI for my own macro agency I'd have a nasty shock, again I judge it purely no results. Not a very analytical method, but each to their own.

Rgds

Oldhand