Another day, another 60p…

Another day, another 60p…

Less than 24 hours after the first contributor commented on the Launch of Limited Use – the first of our Novel Use initiatives, James West, CEO of Alamy has made a second announcement directly concerning Novel Use: Novel Use announcement:

"An opt out has been made available for Novel Use. The opportunity to opt out will be available for two weeks from today. I apologise unreservedly to those of you who feel you have been misled. This was never my intention and it is not the Alamy way of doing things.

To opt out of Novel Use go to My Alamy and follow the link to 'Novel use' under 'Additional revenue opportunities'. Select 'No thanks' and then 'Submit'."

This reversal, followed huge uproar amongst the editorial and stock community. The Internet positively howled with the indignation, anger, and shock of photographers who had signed up to the ‘Novel Use’ model, specifically because Chief Exec. James west had promised them
It wasn’t ‘Micro payment’.

James West stated on September 19, 2007 on his Alamy blog regarding Novel Use; Novel Use Scheme – money from unusual places...

"... This scheme is optional and shouldn't be confused with Micropayment. ..."


James West stated on June 9, 2008 regarding the first Novel Use initiative;

"... Limited Use has been devised to let your images compete in the low cost ‘micropayment’ market..."


If Novel use is to be another string to the Alamy bow, (well why not, there may well be a place for it), then Alamy should do what the biggest players do (Getty, Corbis, Jupiter) and keep Micro/Novel use, low payment stock separate from the bread and butter site.

Allowing RM to be used in an unlimited way as described, does seem to be a tad naive. :-)

However, perhaps we should look at what Alamy want to do a bit closer. Whilst at a first glance by making images available for as little as 60 pence, Alamy are indeed just competing with microstock. But let’s look at this properly. ‘Istockphoto’, sell their images from $1 on their ‘pay as you go’ package, and for your $1 you get use of an image for advertising, promotional and similar uses. To be fair to Istockphoto, they do put restrictions on use of images, no where near enough, to my thinking, but see for yourself here.

What of Alamys low cost pics? Well actually Alamy are not daft. This introduction of blog usage is just an extension of their current payment scheme, just at the lower end of usage rather than at the higher. Alamy are not suggesting that we sell our pics as book covers for 60p, no. What they are suggesting is that a new client is accessed – the blogger. With all the bloggers in the world, and all those private websites, we could easily be selling our work extra to our commercial sales and each sale will earn money. Not much that is the problem. Pricing according to end use is something many of us (most even) already do. I charge £65 as a minimum for use in a magazine, £200 for a double page spread etc. So why not 60 pence for a blogger to use one of my images on his/her site?

The arguments against this are not that Alamy are charging too little – no, the arguments are that it could easily lead to orphans, and subsequent stealing of images from one bloggers site by anyone else who feels like it? Will Alamy police this? Will Alamy ensure all images used are credited to the creator? If one blogger can swipe an image from free, then any web user can.

So Alamy, if I sign up to ‘Novel use’ how will you protect my work?


© Pete Jenkins
www.petejenkins.co.uk
www.photographerspro.eu/pete_jenkins/