After reducing contributor royalties to 40% a couple of weeks ago Alamy have now reversed that announcement reinstating 50% royalties for exclusive images only.
PAN asked Alamy: ” …does anyone do ‘exclusive’ anymore?!” Alamy told us: “We’ve been asking the question for a few years and we already have millions of images that are only on Alamy. Customers love us for that. It’s not for exclusive sales, it’s about where the image is being sold. We are very happy for photographers to have their own website and direct sales but if the image is on another site it won’t qualify for 50/50 and will be on 40/60”
…they rattled too may cages on the 40% thing.
The U-turn on percentages is not enough. It should be applied across the board.
If there is a downturn in the industry then agency owners take a hit.
But so too do contributing photographers.
Too reduce the hit to owners by increasing the hit to photographers is unfair.
Alamy started out with 95% of net sales going to photographers. It touted itself as being “photographer friendly”.
It isn’t perceived as being so friendly now.