But they did answer direct questions through email. Their forum was a horror, rife with the usual trolls and trouble-makers, wanna-be bad boys, wanna-be big boys, you name it. Their customer service was fine - they answered questions. But this apparently is too easy and logical. 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. 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. The image looks perfectly fine every way I can possibly test it. 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. I submitted the initial batch and was accepted, then submitted a few as a test, and all was well. 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 settled on trying Alamy as they seemed the least objectionable out of a pretty disgusting slew of really objectionable agencies. I've travelled the world in the past 9 years and amassed 108,000 images. I retired on royalties 9 years ago, after 40 years making a good living. I started researching stock agencies a few months ago. Nothing about this experience was good, except that they answered a couple of my emails within a few days 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. Unfortunately, stock photography, like coal mining, is now history.
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Those of us already in the game persevered, because we could make a lot of money. When Alamy entered what was a new industry they had to invent new rules, so mistakes were made.
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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. This was unprecedented and frankly crazy, because they've been inundated with rubbish. Apart from banned subjects like glamour, they'll take ANYTHING. I believe criticisms of their QC go back to the fact that they do not edit for content. 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. These people cannot have read their conditions, which clearly state that payment will only be made when there's over $50 due.
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Oct review, I see that a common complaint with Alamy is slow payment. “PA shares our ethos of integrity and quality, and has an excellent reputation built over 150 years,” he said.Frustrated with Alamy? No better elsewhere.įurther to my 21st.
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West said PA was a “natural home” for the company and could “look forward to a fantastic future” as part of the group. “In addition, this acquisition will further strengthen the financial performance of the company and help secure the future of our core news agency business.” “Alamy has created a fantastic ecosystem of content creators and content users around a superior e-commerce platform… He added: “This transformational acquisition will significantly increase our customer base and provide the PA Media Group with a strong presence in the international market for the first time. PA Media Group chief executive Clive Marshall said Alamy would add “real scale and diversity” to the group’s photo services, offering a “wider, richer image portfolio” to its customers. The deal marks the PA group’s first foray into the stock images market, part of a long-term strategy to diversify its business and consolidate its position as a leading cross-platform content provider, it said.Īlamy will continue to operate as a subsidiary of PA Media Group, maintaining its brand identity.Īlamy co-founder James West (pictured) will step down as chief executive and join the board in an advisory position, while fellow co-founder Mike Fischer will leave his position of chairman. PA Media Group, which owns the PA news agency, has bought leading stock images company Alamy for an undisclosed amount.Īlamy was founded 20 years ago and boasts almost 200m stock photographs, with close to 100,000 customers in more than 150 countries across publishing, broadcast, design and advertising.