Alamy レビュー 

Further to my 21st. Oct review, I see that a common complaint with Alamy is slow payment. These people cannot have read their conditions, which clearly state that payment will only be made when there's over $50 due. Under that you'll wait forever. I've been with Alamy about 20 years, during which payment has been made on the dot every month without fail - unless of course I had less than $50 in the kitty, when I'd have to wait until the next month.
I believe criticisms of their QC go back to the fact that they do not edit for content. Apart from banned subjects like glamour, they'll take ANYTHING. This was unprecedented and frankly crazy, because they've been inundated with rubbish. To keep this tsunami of unsaleable stuff under control, they've over reacted on QC, which sometimes has had me tearing my hair out in frustration.
When Alamy entered what was a new industry they had to invent new rules, so mistakes were made. Those of us already in the game persevered, because we could make a lot of money. Unfortunately, stock photography, like coal mining, is now history. Prices are daft - this month my sales stand at $42 for 7 images, some only selling for cents!! It's easy to blame Alamy, which certainly has its faults, but other agencies tell a similar tale. This is the market - effectively dead.

I started researching stock agencies a few months ago. I retired on royalties 9 years ago, after 40 years making a good living. I've travelled the world in the past 9 years and amassed 108,000 images. I settled on trying Alamy as they seemed the least objectionable out of a pretty disgusting slew of really objectionable agencies. The Alamy (new) contract is embarrassingly bad, and the reviews are bad, and the policies are bad, but they're the best? Seems that way and that's sad. I submitted the initial batch and was accepted, then submitted a few as a test, and all was well. I then submitted a huge batch and all were declined because ONE had some cropping error that, to this day, I cannot grasp the meaning of. File size was fine; everything was fine. The image looks perfectly fine every way I can possibly test it. Just this obscure cropping error. In any case, as I said, they dumped that entire gargantuan batch and suggest that if I correct this error, whatever it is, I should resubmit all. Of course if they find a bad one for some technical reason, they could quite easily cull that ONE and check and approve the other thousands. But this apparently is too easy and logical. Their customer service was fine -- they answered questions. Their forum was a horror, rife with the usual trolls and trouble-makers, wanna-be bad boys, wanna-be big boys, you name it. But they did answer direct questions through email. The commissions are beyond ludicrous speed an insult. Had I sold my images for the past forty plus years at Alamy's commissions, I wouldn't even have made a living, let alone been able to retire comfortably. Yes, the industry is what it is now -- Just too many cameras in the world. The agencies now are getting junk, and that's the way it will be forever onward. I wanted to work with Alamy, but they couldn't give me a single thing I wanted. They won't take smaller images -- well, guess what. Millions of buyers are perfectly happy with smaller images because they're going online. The disappointments went on and on and on until I simply deleted my account -- which, by the way, they say will take a staggering 45 days! So if you gave Alamy an exclusive, it's out of action for 45 days. Did you give them 43,000 exclusives? I'm sorry for you. Too many people claiming they never got paid, or only got paid "eventually". Too many people spending ALL their time chasing infringements that slipped through Alamy's swiss cheese contract. This was my first foray into stock, and my last.

I had a website that was built for the previous owner 11-12 years ago and I get a demand letter that I pay for copyright infringement on a single image. Of course I don't have the info from the image and the web developer that made my site is long gone so I don't know what account or email the image is registered under. But they probably know there is a good chance someone isn't going to have that info 10+ years later so they hire a company to spray and pray copyright claims at every instance of the image on the web hoping they pay the settlement.

I emailed them twice but didn't even respond. They have family related images which I want to download and I don't think that I should have to pay the fee

immagini di scarsa qualità. pagata cara.

Alamy are doing pretty well in a difficult market. It seems most of the complaints on here are by people who don't really understand what it means to be a professional photographer, and/or contribute to a stock library.

Great site for contributors with the best earnings in the market! The only problem is that to get a sale is extremely difficult!

A ton of rules and confusion loading and tagging and then they don't pay the photographer once a picture is purchased. I have a thousand pictures online and 3 have sold for a measly 15.00 and they will not pay out for this in over 3 years because you have to make a specified amount before they let go of your money and hold on to all of your photos that they sell for pennies. It is a truely shameful experience.

What a complete waste of time!!!!
You can not use a Bridge Camera or your mobile.
This is backwards!!!
The tech in top end mobile camera phones enables the sensor to stay small but they add lens to compensate for this. Leica are just one of the pioneers of this and the tech is not that new.
Bridge cameras can outperform low and medium slrs and again this is down to the tech not the sensor size.
It is complete BS that they don't know the type of camera when uploading images, it even says to you if it was taken on bridge or Mobile.
Out of date photo snobbery.
So in summary if you have all the gear and no idea,
Spend €10,000 on dig SLR and lenses.
And you want to carry all of your gear with you all the time.
You will miss every action shot lugging and setting up all your gear around, and in the event yoh do get that great shot, you will never sell it, by the sounds of things.
Complete marketed rubbish!!!

I have been contributing to Alamy for a few years now and after the initial rejection, I left it for a while until I felt that my photography had improved sufficiently. I check and recheck my photos at 100% and sometimes if I am not sure, I don't upload them for fear of them rejecting one and then you get put on hold for about 10 days. I think I will give it the miss as the time that it takes to prepare and then waiting for QC is not worth it. I have never sold a photo in the time I have been with them. I don't think i have even had any zooms which is disappointing as I am a reasonably good photographer. Maybe it is the subject matter. I don't know the answer but I will be going elsewhere I think.

Photo Error.
Searching the web I came across an Image taken in
the Tarra Bulga NP. The image states the Fungus in the Image is Mycena leaiana. The ID is incorrect this is
Galerina patagonica this species has an annulus which is obvious in the image.

Alamy is a crook site. They do sell images that are protected by a copyright (i.e. images from the British Museum, the MET, etc). I do not understand why the relevant institutions do not take any measure to stop this.

Habe gerade trotz der schlechten Bewertungen ein Bildrecht für die private Verwendung gekauft und bin sowohl mit dem Preis als auch dem Download sehr zufrieden.
Ich würde bei Bedarf hier erneut bestellen.

I have been submitting images to Alamy for 11 years but recently their service levels have become intolerable.
Six weeks ago I submitted four separate batches of photos over a two day period. One photo in one batch failed QC, but all photos in all four batches were rejected. My account was frozen for this one-off oversight. I understand the need to maintain standards, but rejecting perfectly good photos in unrelated batches is unnecessary, vengeful and causes resentment.
I submitted another batch which has now been languishing in QC for three weeks. This is beyond the joke, and I doubt I'll be using Alamy again. They don't seem to want our photos and it's no longer worth all the hassle.

Why are Alamy badging photographs as their own which are clearly not. I am a historian currently producing work which uses Nineteenth Century images. There are many drawing, painting and photographs available online from the period, produced in the Nineteenth Century, often coming from local archives which are now appearing with the Alamy badge. These are images produced by long dead artists and photographers, any copyright expiring decades ago, and yet they appear time and time again with Alamy emblazoned across them.
Alamy are not alone in this, there seem to be an epidemic of web based organisation claiming historical image as their own. Many show the same images, taken from originals or printed in publications of many types, yet they are all claiming ownership. I appreciate these organisations holding images for us all to share, however, given the increasing cheapness of internet storage and the ability of anyone to upload images to a web page, and the ability of search engines to find these images, I hardly think it necessary for this type of image to be placed on these stock image sites.
And Alamy actually want me to pay several pounds for an image which is out of copyright and has no clearly attributable source... Please stop doing this, I know that you want to become internet billionaires but you cannot own images that were never yours, or your clients, in the first place. Rant!

I've not had any images stolen like others are alleging. However, their review time for images and the draconian ban that you get when they don't like one of them is very off-putting.

I can understand that they don't people continually uploading low quality images but they discount any in the queue after one they don't like. For me, there are usually many in the queue since it takes them a very long time to review any. This means that after some subjective dislike of one image, they discount many more without considering them. I then cannot upload again for 10 days, then have to re-upload all the images that they discounted without looking at.

If you want to waste a lot of time with stock site the Alamy are top of the tree.

MISREPRESENTED STOLEN IMAGES FOR PROFIT?
I am a musicologist researching early music, including nineteenth century sheet music. I have noticed on a few occasions Alamy charges for high resolution pictures of decorative sheet music covers which can be found at library sources online at the same resolution FOR FREE! Have they stolen these images? I have to wonder. One might argue that they come from a different copy than the library — then why do they have the same pen/pencil notations and stains in the exact same places? Would understand if they were honest about their source but they are not. Would never order anything from Alamy.

I don't have very many images with Alamy but noticed one of my images was sold yet I show no sales. There's some flimsy verbiage on their FAQs about having to wait on the customer to get the funds. And it can take up to 3 months! Do they really ever pay out? I am skeptical. Who can investigate whether or not they're fraudulent?

Guter Anbieter, Bilder haben gute Qualität, Service ist Top. Nicht der billigste Anbieter aber sein Geld definitiv wert.