Meet-up at the Photo Show
By Colblimp,
August 2, 2021 in Stock photography discussion and contributor experience
Steve F 1,351
Location: Hampshire (UK) & Lower Austria
16 minutes ago, Alamy said:
I know that the above will not "make up" for the fact that the commission split has changed to 60/40 to those contributors who fall into the Gold model, but I do believe they are genuine reasons to not consider exclusivity at Alamy to be "pointless".
James, still not happy about the commission drop, but thanks a lot for the comprehensive reply on remaining exclusive (or not!).
geogphotos 4,666
geogphotos
Location: Suffolk, England
1 hour ago, Alamy said:
You won't be "competing" with yourself across other agents. In many cases, the main competition for Alamy are with sites that have a far lower average sale price than us. Placing portfolios there which will average out at a significantly lower average price means it can impact the rate of sales here where our average price is much closer to $30 and can often go much higher. Many buyers check multiple sites and it removes our bargaining power to gain higher fees if they find the same images elsewhere, cheaper.
We have a new dedicated, proactive infringements chasing team installed here now that has been operational for a couple of months. We are partnering with multiple organisations who will be proactively finding and securing payments from infringers of your imagery. We will be prioritising the images marked as exclusive to us within this team to secure funds for. Typically the infringement amounts are set at 5x the normal rate, and the contributor will receive 50% / 40% / 20% of the share Alamy receive according to the commission structure they are on. I'm hopeful we can signpost this infringement revenue for contributors so they can see the benefit in revenue this brings in as we grow the operation over the coming months.
We have lots of plans for the search engine and developing our product over the coming months and years. Having some kind of "exclusive" to Alamy offering will always be part of the consideration, and it does give us more bargaining power when in negotiations for licences with customers who are after unique products
1) In the past you seemed to say that you had no evidence that having the same images on micros had an adverse effect on Alamy sales - that's what Brasilnut thought you told him. I agree that it seems logical that it would. Before that James West actively encouraged us not to have all our eggs in one basket
2) 5X the normal Alamy rate is not attractive compared with the competition - of course this is because there are two big bites being taken before the contributor gets anything. For this reason I have made all my Alamy images non-exclusive. Also because 'normal Alamy fees are not so great.
3) It was made clear as a reason and justification for the commission reduction that exclusive images had no commercial advantage to Alamy.
The end result is that there is very little incentive to put effort into contributing. Naturally those who do so for fun will continue. But my guess is that Alamy are losing images from a significant number of experienced and successful stock photographers.
The sooner PA realise this the better.
Edited September 22, 2021 by geogphotos
M.Chapman 2,043
M.Chapman
7 hours ago, Alamy said:
The commission structure change affected roughly 7% of the contributor base (EDIT: I should clarify it was 7% of IMAGES) so for the vast majority, the 60/40 deal was already in place for those who don't qualify for platinum.
For me personally, 90% of my images were Alamy exclusive, so the effect on me, and others like me, is significant.
In many cases, the main competition for Alamy are with sites that have a far lower average sale price than us.
But that's offset by a massive increase in the number of sales being achieved on those sites.
I look forward to seeing some results, and have not yet switched more images to non-exclusive because of this "opportunity". Perhaps you will be able to update us on progress in due course, as it's the only reason I've not swapped already all my images to non-exclusive.
Many buyers check multiple sites and it removes our bargaining power to gain higher fees if they find the same images elsewhere, cheaper.
So why oh why did Alamy remove a key incentive for us to stay exclusive (i.e. higher commission)??
Edited September 22, 2021 by M.Chapman
Alamy 803
13 minutes ago, geogphotos said:
The reality is that the data does not reflect your guess - a minuscule % of images were removed or taken to non-exclusive status as a result of this commission change.
3 minutes ago, Alamy said:
I wasn't referring to that. I'm talking about the images that aren't being uploaded because there is little incentive to take them in the first place.
I'm sure you have stats that show you have more uploads than ever but I'm not taking about that either.
You can't endlessly syphon revenue from contributors. Can you???
Thank you for the feedback, James. You haven't mentioned what the thinking was behind the $25K "Platinum" threshold, which is totally unrealistic for most individual contributors, even those with large collections. This was a huge slap in the face for many of us who have been with Alamy for many years. A more realistic amount (say $10K or $12K) would do a lot to restore trust and incentive. Something to think about...
Edited September 22, 2021 by John Mitchell
15 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:
I was merely listing the remaining reasons why I personally believe it's worthwhile marking images as exclusive to alamy.
To be clear, despite exclusivity being an advantage when it comes to some negotiations, for the majority it doesn't have an impact and with only 7% of images marked as exclusive (with many incorrectly marked as such) it was not a commercially significant element to our overall offering.
As previously mentioned though, we have not seen a significant drop in the % of images marked as exclusive to Alamy since the change has come into place and for the platinum group, the exclusivity 50% incentive remains.
4 minutes ago, geogphotos said:
(Last post from me in this thread)
You're right - uploads, registrations and (significantly for this discussion) uploads from existing (not new) contributors are up.
Of course our intention is not to "endlessly syphon revenue from contributors" and we feel that we are building towards an end goal that will ultimately be advantageous to our contributors as well as our customers.
I don't mean to sound like proverbial broken record, but re the $25K threshold for "Platinum" (50/50), a quick check of the "How was your month" threads would reveal that even the most talented and prolific forum members seldom surpass the $10K or $12K annual revenue amounts, let alone $25K. This threshold is really a permanently locked gate for almost everyone here. I think that I'm not alone in requesting an explanation of the logic and intent behind this move on Alamy's part. Cheers.
But Phil Crean reports that he was told that "The 40% commission rate is purely a PA thing".
Commission has gone from 65% to 40% in just a few years - what would you think if that same rate of commission cut was applied to your salary to boost company profits?
Could you at least put some flesh on what the 'end goal' is?
@Alamy
Remember this response to me on Twitter Mr Allsworth:
I think it's exactly this kind of response which makes engaging on these issues pretty redundant - happy to look into the specifics on this one tomorrow when I'm back in the office but needless to say it won't be "Full RF" - far from it.
This in response to the selling of a RM image as near RF.
I'm still waiting for the response to this. Tomorrow was about 2 months ago. For me it shows just how engaged management are with the very people who provide content and ultimately pay their wages. As @geogphotos says, how would you feel seeing your wages cut? The reality is that it's not going to happen but it will to us.
Such a sad sad way to go about business and completely unnecessary.
27 minutes ago, Jools Elliott said:
Of course I remember! It was actually in response to you saying you don't need to bother asking as the answer will be "waffle" - not in response to the selling of an RM image as RF.
The conversation is public on my Twitter feed where I eventually ducked out of the conversation (after saying so) due to the fact that I felt you were being increasingly hostile to each one of my replies.
The limited, single electronic editorial use licence of the RM image you raised in that conversation claiming to be RF was far from being so, as detailed in the licence itself. "Perpetuity" in that case refers to the archive rights which is pretty standard these days.
Raising this issue within this topic though is really not relevant to the discussion here.
You are talking about lack of engagement, however we've just finished 4 days at a photography trade show (with no other stock libraries in attendance) where we've invited any existing contributors to come and speak with us.
You are also referencing a Twitter thread where I replied to you numerous times from my personal account.
Engagement and dialogue is great, but has to be based upon basic professionalism.
I had some really great conversations with contributors at the photography show, I'm sorry I didn't get to meet you to discuss some of these points face to face.
For any questions or concerns you have for any of your Alamy licenses or images, please get in touch with the team who will be happy to help.
Sep 22 Alamy locked and unlocked this topic
It probably wouldn't have been a good idea to meet. Sadly I feel that Alamy have let contributors down many times now yet they cannot see that.
Professional? Personally, I am ever the professional but sadly I don't see that from Alamy in the way that it has treated contributors. This to me says everything:
"ultimately the change in commission structure was a business decision to balance the needs of shareholders, customers, staff, contributors etc that allows us to get us where we need to be for future success."
How many times do we have to hear this? Seriously? It's never balanced in favour of the contributor. It's always going to be skewed towards the shareholders etc.
Sultanpepa 1,241
Sultanpepa
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
James, you said, "ultimately the change in commission structure was a business decision to balance the needs of shareholders, customers, staff, contributors etc that allows us to get us where we need to be for future success." I suspect you've listed the relative parties in order of importance and rather than balance you've completely neglected to take the needs of the contributor into account when grabbing the extra 20%. Capitalism at its ugly best. As someone already said, you wouldn't accept a 20% reduction in your salary, I don't see why you think contributors should accept it quietly. BTW the rebilling percentage grab is equally if not even more abhorrent.
I see you've stolen my thunder. 😉
@Sultanpepa or maybe helping it more clearer!
Sadly the response from @Alamy shows that they don't care one iota about us. So they spent 4 days at the show. I wonder if they explained what they've just done to contributors and that we all know it'll probably happen again as they bring themselves into line with other libraries.
basic professionalism
Not imposing a badly worded contract with unreasonable terms on long term contributors
Not reducing contributor's commission when re-invoicing
Although Alamy may still be seeing a high level of uploads and a minuscule % of images removed or taken to non-exclusive status after the contract change, what Alamy can't see is how many new images are now being submitted elsewhere by long term Alamy contributors. Time will tell whether Alamy have made the right business decisions. I hope they have because I've made a significant investment in time and energy contributing images to Alamy which I'd like to continue to receive a return from. If it wasn't for that investment I'd have left.
meanderingemu 2,385
meanderingemu
3 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:
or leaving it vague enough to be able to change meanings depending of what maximise Alamy earnings at expense of Contributors.
I thought of a way around the 'commercially sensitive' problem of telling us how many contributors are Platinum.
With only 7% of the Alamy collection exclusive what percentage of Alamy images is eligible for 50% commission?
I suppose Alamy can still say that if offers up to 50% to show how generous it is! 😶
Colblimp 3,121
Colblimp
Location: West Cork, Ireland
11 hours ago, Sultanpepa said:
This ^^^^^ All of this^^^^^
And that's all I'll say on this thread otherwise I'll be banned from the forum for what I'm currently thinking.
Sep 23 Alamy locked this topic